Is Elon Musk at the Qatar World Cup 2022 final? Twitter owner spotted at Lusail Stadium

Elon Musk has been spotted arriving at the world cup final in Qatar.

The Twitter owner and one-time richest man on the planet was pictured in Doha heading to the Lusail Stadium, the venue for Argentina vs France. He was flanked by Qatari officials.

Musk had posted earlier in the year suggesting he would be interested in purchasing Manchester United. However he has not openly renewed this interest following the news that the Glazers had put the club up for sale.

The Twitter owner’s arrival at the World Cup final comes after a week in which he was warned he could face sanctions in Europe after banning journalists from the platform. Officials in Brussels said the company could face sanctions “soon” after booting a series of journalists covering the billionaire off its platform.

European Commissioner Vera Jourova said that the suspensions were “worrying” and that EU law protects media freedom. “News about arbitrary suspension of journalists on Twitter is worrying,” Ms Jourova said.

The commissioner, who is the European Commission’s vice-president for values and transparency, said : “EU’s Digital Services Act requires respect of media freedom and fundamental rights. This is reinforced under our #MediaFreedomAct. “Elon Musk should be aware of that. There are red lines. And sanctions, soon.” It comes after Twitter overnight suspended the accounts of a series of journalists who have been writing about Mr Musk.

Where is the World Cup final being held?

The Lusail Iconic Stadium will host the final fixture of the tournament. The Lusail Iconic is owned by the Qatar Football Association and is the biggest stadium in the country. It was one of eight stadiums converted for the 2022 World Cup and is located about 20km north of Doha.

It will have hosted 10 fixtures this tournament, five of which have seen Argentina play there. This will, however, be the first time France have featured at this stadium which has a reported capacity for 88,966 people. This figure will however drop following the conclusion of the competition.

How much are tickets for the World Cup final?

Tickets were being sold online earlier in the week reportedly cost upwards of £2,550 with some vendors suggesting they are as much as £3,500. Go to TicketCompare to find out more on availability and potential costs for tickets.

Why were journalists banned from Twitter?

The Twitter owner – who bought the platform for 44 billion dollars in October – joined a live broadcast which included some of these reporters. He accused the journalists of “doxxing” him – an online term used for the publication of private information that could be used to identify a person’s location or address.

“As I’m sure everyone who’s been doxxed would agree, showing real-time information about somebody’s location is inappropriate, and I think everyone on this call would not like that to be done to them,” he said on the live call – hosted on Twitter’s Spaces service. “There is not going to be any distinction in the future between journalists – so called journalists – and regular people.”

A short while later the Spaces service itself was suspended. Twitter does not appear to have explained why it suspended the Spaces service. However some users pointed out that Twitter profiles which had been banned appeared to still be able to use the Spaces function despite their suspension.

The latest in a long series of scandals sparked by Mr Musk came after Twitter suspended an account which posts public information about the flight paths of his private jet. The @elonjet account was suspended, Mr Musk claimed, for doxxing him. All planes have to have a transponder which shows their locations, so the information is public. The decision to ban the account came just over a month since he had promised not to take the account down.