Government reading our Twitter DMs? Musk says yes!

Onur Demirkol
Apr 18, 2023
Updated • Apr 18, 2023
Twitter
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In a recent interview, Elon Musk claimed that the U.S. government had complete access to everything on Twitter.

Tucker Carlson from Fox News interviewed Musk, and a shocking truth came out. Carlson shared a small clip of the interview in which Musk makes a claim. He says that the United States government had access to everything that comes to your mind, including direct messages and such. He also added that he wasn't aware of the situation before.

“The degree to which government agencies effectively had full access to everything that was going on on Twitter blew my mind. I was not aware of that," said Musk in the video clip.

"Would that include people’s DMs?" Carlson asks Musk, and he replies, "Yes." We don't have access to the full interview as it will air on Monday at 8 p.m. ET.

Related: Twitter Circle data breach: Think twice before tweeting

Most people assumed at least their private messages were secure and "outsiders" didn't have access. However, Musk says the opposite. We don't know for how long the government had access to all information on Twitter. People will probably raise concerns, and it is unclear whether the government will make an announcement about the situation or not.

Twitter DM government Musk
Is Twitter a safe place?

AI is dangerous, said Musk

Elon Musk also included his thoughts on AI in the interview shared by Carlson. “AI is more dangerous than, say, mismanaged aircraft design or production maintenance, or bad car production in the sense that it has the potential – however small one may regard that probability, but it is non-trivial – it has the potential for civilizational destruction,” he said.

Musk recently called for a six-month AI pause because of its risks to society. Some of the industry executives also joined him, and they sent an open letter to Sam Altman, OpenAI's founder.

The interview went live on Monday night, and if you missed it, it will be on air on Tuesday night too.

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Comments

  1. Jek Porkins said on April 18, 2023 at 10:48 am
    Reply

    Two things I took away from this article. The gov having access to tech companies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc. user data is not news. Snowden revealed this several years ago. More surprising is the fact Musk (allegedly) had no clue this was going on. Has he been living under a rock?

    The other thing is the 6 month pause on AI he is proposing, it seems cynically self serving as he is trying to start his own AI company, X.AI. Does he want the pause simply to allow him time to catch up?

    1. Anonymous said on April 24, 2023 at 3:06 am
      Reply

      “The gov having access to tech companies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc. user data is not news. Snowden revealed this several years ago. More surprising is the fact Musk (allegedly) had no clue this was going on. Has he been living under a rock?”

      I have the same feeling sometimes that all of this has been like forgotten and all public discourse is starting back from a virgin state on that matter. Weird.

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