(Dmytro “Henry” Aleksandrov, Headline USA) Twitter CEO Elon Musk claimed during an interview with Tucker Carlson that the U.S. government had access to users’ private messages on the social media platform.
The wide-ranging interview with Carlson is set to broadcast on Monday and Tuesday nights, according to the Daily Mail. Musk said that when he finally bought the company and was able to look at what is going on inside, he was shocked to learn that the previous Twitter establishment gave full access to private communications on the platform to the government.
Musk also told Carlson about how he was unaware of the fact that this was happening until he joined the company and expressed his surprise at how much power the American government had when it comes to being able to monitor messages on Twitter.
“The degree to which government agencies effectively had full access to everything that was going on on Twitter blew my mind,” he said. “I was not aware of that.”
Carlson then asked a direct question related to privacy on the social media platform.
“Would that include people’s DMs?”
Musk responded affirmatively.
The Daily Mail reported that Musk’s admission that the United States government had full access to everything that was happening on Twitter — including private direct messages — is likely to raise concerns among the users of the social media platform who may have assumed that their private conversations were private and secure from people who are not supposed to see them.
Even though it is not clear how long this problem has been going on, Musk’s claims suggest that the situation is far more widespread than many people may have considered.
However, government surveillance of social media platforms was not the only thing that he talked about with Carlson. Musk also mentioned his concerns about the dangers of artificial intelligence.
According to Musk, the situation with AI is so horrible that he thinks it has the potential to cause the downfall of civilization.
“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.
Elon Musk talking with Tucker Carlson about AI:
"It has the potential of civilization destruction."pic.twitter.com/ik4UM5V165
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) April 15, 2023
