When he’s not encouraging Kanye to enter the presidential race, or trying to stream music (read: information) directly into our brains, Elon Musk is known for his sprawling Twitter rants – the latest of which claims that the Egyptian pyramids were built by aliens.

The SpaceX founder tweeted on Friday (July 31): “Aliens built the pyramids obv”, which was retweeted more than 85,000 times and liked by more than half a million people. Presumably, he was showing support for the conspiracy theorists who believe extraterrestrial beings constructed the ancient structures.

But Egypt’s international co-operation minister Rania Al Mashat was quick to respond to the conspiracy, urging Musk to visit the tombs of the pyramid builders as proof that they were, in fact, built by humans.

She tweeted: “I follow your work with a lot of admiration. I invite you and SpaceX to explore the writings about how the pyramids were built and also to check out the tombs of the pyramid builders. Mr Musk, we are waiting for you.”

Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass later responded in a short video in Arabic, posted on social media, saying Musk’s claim was a “complete hallucination”.

Musk later tweeted a link to a BBC History site about the lives of the pyramid builders, saying: “This BBC article provides a sensible summary for how it was done.”