Elon Musk says US government can read private Twitter DMs
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Elon Musk affirms that the US government "had full access" to private Twitter DMs.
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SpaceX owner and Tesla CEO Elon Musk gestures during a conversation with designer Todd Howard (not pictured) at the E3 gaming convention in Los Angeles, California, US, June 13, 2019. (Reuters)
Elon Musk, who purchased Twitter in October 2022 for $44 billion, revealed that the US can read private direct messages (DMs) between users, as per an explosive new teaser clip shared by Tucker Carlson.
“The degree to which various government agencies effectively had full access to everything that was going on on Twitter blew my mind. I was not aware of that,” Musk said in the new clip that’s available on Twitter.
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) April 16, 2023
“Would that include people’s DMs?” Carlson questioned.
“Ah, yes,” Musk replied in the short clip.
Last year, Twitter CEO Elon Musk released Twitter Files that showed the US government's interference in censoring certain posts and users among other revelations.
Matt Taibbi, the US journalist who originally published the Twitter Files, described the coordination between Twitter and governmental agencies as going far beyond coordination with the FBI as per recent posts.
In a massive series of tweets, Taibbi argued that the FBI was but a "doorman to a vast program of social media surveillance and censorship, encompassing agencies across the federal government – from the State Department to the Pentagon to the CIA."
Part eight of the Twitter Files showed how the platform "directly assisted the U.S. military’s influence operations." Part seven showcased the FBI’s attempts to discredit information about Hunter Biden and his foreign business dealings.
Read next: Ex-Twitter CEO responsible for social network's political censorship
