Musk Reveals Government Had Access To Twitter Users’ Private Messages

In his first interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson, Twitter CEO Elon Musk discussed the collusion between the social media platform’s previous owners and the federal government — revealing that they had allowed the government to have direct access to all Twitter users’ direct messages (DMs).

Musk told Carlson that the U.S. government had “full access” to private conversations between any and all Twitter users — which the Twitter CEO said that he was not expecting when he purchased the company and planned to increase the social media platform’s transparency.

“The degree to which government agencies effectively had full access to everything that was going on on Twitter blew my mind,” Musk said. “I was not aware of that.”
Carlson responded by asking whether that applied to DMs, to which Musk simply said “Yes.”

The Twitter CEO also discussed the recent tantrum from National Public Radio (NPR), a public broadcasting service that is both directly and indirectly funded by the federal government. Twitter recently slapped NPR’s Twitter account with a “state-affiliated media” label — and they responded by announcing that they were no longer going to be using Twitter in protest.

Musk eventually changed the label to “government-funded media,” but NPR is still refusing to tweet because of the objectively accurate label.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre spoke out in defense of NPR, claiming that they are editorially independent while not denying that the service is government funded.

“If anyone were to follow their coverage, it is clear that they are indeed an independent news organization,” she said. “Their journalistic integrity and commitment to unbiased reporting are a testament to their independence.”

Meanwhile, many critics of that argument have pointed out the clear left-wing bias of NPR — and argued that it is extremely likely that the government would rescind their funding if they were to become a right-leaning outlet.

Musk also discussed his concerns with the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) during the interview, arguing 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 added. “It’s crucial that we establish regulations and guidelines to prevent any catastrophic consequences.”

Musk has founded his own alternative AI firm amid the rise in controversial and concerning AI software such as ChatGPT. Many have criticized the current AI programs because of their tendency to be “politically correct” and to adhere to the left-wing narrative at the cost of factual accuracy. Musk allegedly plans to make his AI firm more factual and less political.

“I will try to create a third option,” Musk told Carlson, adding: “I’m going to start something called TruthGPT…a maximum truth-seeking AI that tries to understand the nature of the universe.”

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