It is sad that minorities such as the gay community are not accepted by Malaysians, billionaire philanthropist Richard Branson lamented.

He said business leaders should speak up on such issues, where governments are failing to perform as they should.

"I think now that some governments are not fulfilling their role - in America, in some countries - the way they should be, I think business leaders need to be brave and speak out.

"If you take somewhere like Malaysia, I think it's sad that minorities like the gay community are not accepted," the told the audience at the Global Transformation Forum in Kuala Lumpur today.

The forum was organised by the government's Performance Management and Delivery Unit (Pemandu). The event's emcee claimed that some 3,000 people were in attendance.

Branson, who founded the Virgin group which consist of over 400 companies, claimed that one-in-eight people are born gay, so it is sad to make their lives "very uncomfortable" merely because of their sexual orientation, rather than to welcome them.

"So myself and other business people are trying to get entrepreneurs to be more welcoming and more embracing of people, whether it is the gay community; whether it is women, making sure that women are treated equally in workplace and society; speaking out about (US President Donald Trump) trying to stop people from a number of countries being able to come into America," he added.

Branson was responding to question asking him what issues he cared about.

Hatred for neckties

He had earlier told the audience that he has spent 80 percent of his time on non-profit issues and speaking up on matters that he felt strongly about.

His comments came amid a row over censorship of films that depict gay characters, namely the live-action remake of the film "Beauty and the Beast", and the film "Power Rangers".

"Beauty and the Beast" was supposed to premier on March 16, but this was initially cancelled after the Film Censorship Board ordered a scene purportedly portraying a "gay moment" to be cut, while the distributor The Walt Disney Co refused.

Cinemas also briefly suspended ticket sales for "Power Rangers" over concerns that it may suffer a similar fate, after its director Dean Israelite reportedly said that one of the movie's protagonists would be questioning her sexuality in the movie.

However, "Beauty of the Beast" was later allowed to be screened with a PG-13 rating without cuts, while screening for "Power Rangers" was also approved.

Meanwhile, Branson ended his talk by snipping the neckties off the talk's moderator and CNN aviation correspondent Richard Quest, and Pemandu CEO Idris Jala, before the trio took a selfie together.

Branson is known to detest neckties and had a reputation of carrying a pair of scissors for the express purpose of cutting them off other people's necks, and even boasted to have a cushion made out of his victims' neckties.

"Seeing other people wearing ties look so uncomfortable that they begin to make me feel uncomfortable. I remain convinced that ties only exist because managers, after spending years being forced to wear ties by their bosses, decide to force the next generation to do the same," he wrote in a blog post November last year.