Twitter CEO Elon Musk\u2002claimed in an interview that the U.S. government has \u201cfull access\u201d to users\u2019 private direct messages, saying knowing that information blew his mind.
In an excerpt of his Fox News interview with host Tucker Carlson, Musk told Carlson that he was shocked to find out about the government\u2019s ability to read users\u2019 direct messages on his platform.
\u201cThe degree to which government agencies effectively had full access to everything that was going on on Twitter blew my mind,\u201d Musk, who recently founded an artificial intelligence company called X.AI, told Carlson in the interview set to air on Tuesday. \u201cI was not aware of that.\u201d
\u201cWould that include people\u2019s DMs?\u201d Carlson asked Musk.
\u201cYes,\u201d Musk replied to Carlson.
Musk also expressed his concern about the latest wave of artificial intelligence, referred to as A.I., telling Carlson that he believes the technology has the potential to destroy civilization.
\u201cAI is more dangerous than, say, mismanaged aircraft design or production maintenance, or bad car production in the sense that it has the potential \u2014 however small one may regard that probability, but it is non-trivial \u2014 it has the potential for civilizational destruction,\u201d Musk said.
The remarks come as Musk, who officially purchased the social media platform last month, has embroiled himself in another feud with National Public Radio (NPR), an independent news organization.
NPR announced\u2002last week that it would let its Twitter accounts go dormant and no longer post on the social media platform in response to Twitter adding a \u201cstate-affiliated media\u201d label to a number of media outlets that receive some public funding.
Twitter then dropped the \u201cstate-affiliated\u201d label and changed it to say \u201cgovernment funded,\u201d after receiving widespread pushback from the decision.
In a statement, White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said that NPR is an independent news organization, saying \u201cIf anyone were to follow their coverage, it is clear that they are indeed an independent news organization.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n