In his first interview with Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, Twitter CEO Elon Musk revealed that, under the social media company’s previous management, the federal government had direct access to the private direct messages (DMs) of all Twitter users.
Breitbart reports that, according to Musk, the U.S. government had “full access” to private correspondences between any and all users, something Musk was not expecting when he took over the company and planned to increase the site’s transparency.
The degree to which government agencies effectively had full access to everything that was going on on Twitter blew my mind,” said Musk, the world’s wealthiest man. “I was not aware of that.”
When Carlson asked if this applied to DMs, Musk simply responded with “Yes.”
Musk also discussed the recent clash between Twitter and National Public Radio (NPR), a public broadcasting service that is directly funded by the federal government. Musk had Twitter correctly label NPR’s official account as “state-affiliated media,” to which the organization announced it would no longer use Twitter. Musk eventually had the designation changed from “state-affiliated” to “government-funded.”
Later in the interview, Musk expressed his concerns with the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), stating that “it has the potential — however small one may regard that probability, but it is non-trivial — it has the potential for civilizational destruction.”
“The pace at which AI is developing is something that society should be paying close attention to,” he continued. “It’s crucial that we establish regulations and guidelines to prevent any catastrophic consequences.”
Amid the rise of AI software such as ChatGPT and increasingly accurate AI-generated voices of celebrities, politicians, and other famous individuals, Musk has since founded his own alternative AI firm, X.AI.