Elon Musk says the US government had full access to DMs on Twitter
Twitter CEO Elon Musk has claimed that the U.S. government "had full access" to private messages on the social media platform. Musk made this revelation in an interview with Fox News talk show host Tucker Carlson, which will be aired tonight in the U.S. Carlson, shared a snippet of this on Twitter.
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) April 16, 2023
This is Musk's second interview this month where he has spoken about the Twitter acquisition and its ramifications to the media, after a quickly arranged interview with the BBC last week. In that interview, Musk had said that being the CEO of the social media platform had been "painful" and the company, which had "four months to live," was now barely breaking even.
Following Musk's accusation, the Tucker Carlson interview promises to be more explosive.
How much access and how?
It is clear that the clip has been released to turn heads and get people to watch the interview. In the clip, Musk says that "the degree to which government agencies effectively had full access to everything" blew his mind since he was unaware of it.
While a severe accusation that affects the privacy of Twitter users, it does not delve into the depth of the matter. From the clip, it is unclear how many users were affected by this "access to everything" and what authorized this access.
Additionally, what has Musk done about this since the time he learned about this, and how does his social platform now prevent user data from government access?

Carlson makes it a point to ask if this access meant access to private messages or DMs, as they are called for social media platforms, to which Musk replies yes. However, it does not clarify whether this access was for certain individuals obtained through a court order or was the U.S. government was just constantly monitoring all DMs on Twitter and for what purpose.
As a champion of individual rights, Musk isn't very good at maintaining individual privacy. Previously Interesting Engineering reported how Musk mocked a Twitter team member and even revealed his disability publicly. At his electric vehicle-making company, Tesla employees have publicly shared videos not intended to be transferred outside Tesla, Forbes reported.
So, the interview raises further questions about what Musk has done to safeguard Twitter users and their information since his plans to encrypt DMs have not been implemented yet.
Perhaps the only way to find out is to watch Musk speak to Tucker Carlson tonight.