Elon Musk says U.S. government had 'full access' to all Twitter users' private messages

April 18, 2023

Twitter CEO Elon Musk claimed during an interview with Fox News' Tucker Carlson that the U.S. federal government had access to all Twitter users' private messages when he took over the platform.

Musk said he was shocked to find out about the government's surveillance of those on the site and the "full access" they had to the messages.

“The degree to which government agencies effectively had full access to everything that was going on on Twitter blew my mind,” Musk told Carlson. “I was not aware of that.”

The conversation then moved on to the topic of artificial intelligence, with Musk stating that AI must be carefully controlled or it could be destructive to society.

“It has the potential — however small one may regard that probability, but it is non-trivial — it has the potential for civilizational destruction," Musk said. Musk recently formed the company X.AI to expand into artificial intelligence and was also an original co-founder of Open AI.

“The pace at which AI is developing is something that society should be paying close attention to. It’s crucial that we establish regulations and guidelines to prevent any catastrophic consequences," Musk declared.