In a recent interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson, Twitter CEO Elon Musk claimed that the U.S. government has “full access” to all private direct communications that users have.
Musk revealed that he was shocked to find out that the government had the right to read a user’s direct messages that were sent on his social media platform. He added that his mind was blown upon finding the true extent to which government agencies were able to access all the information on Twitter. The Twitter CEO also recently founded an artificial intelligence company called X.AI, while talking with Carlson he noted that he was “not aware” of how much information the U.S. government had access to.
Carlson specifically asked Musk whether that meant that they also had access to people’s direct messages. To this Musk quickly replied “Yes.”
Musk also noted that he was concerned about the increase in artificial intelligence, stating that in his view this technology is “more dangerous” than many other technologies and could potentially even lead to “civilizational destruction.”
Last week, Musk also found himself in another feud with National Public Radio (NPR), an independent news organization, that stated that they would stop using their Twitter accounts and would not post on the platform because of the addition of “state-affiliated media” label to media outlets that received some public funding.
Twitter was quick to change the “state-affiliated” label which now reads “government-funded” instead. This decision has led to a lot of backlash, with White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre backing that NPR is an independent news organization as is evidenced by their coverage.
