Twitter owner Elon Musk is laying out a major claim about the level of access U.S. intelligence agencies had to data on the social media company.
During an interview with Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, Musk shared some of what he discovered after he took over the company.
Carlson suggested the new owner discovered U.S. intelligence agencies were “affecting” the company’s operations.
“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.
When Carlson asked if the government would have access to users’ direct messages, the billionaire responded, “Uh, yes.”
He explained, “Yes because the DMs were not encrypted.”
Watch the video below:
Tucker Carlson: "You were shocked to find out that various intel agencies were affecting [Twitter's] operations?" @elonmusk: "The degree to which various Government Agencies had effectively full access to everything that was going on on Twitter blew my mind." pic.twitter.com/l6KBQI3Vd9
— The Columbia Bugle 🇺🇸 (@ColumbiaBugle) April 18, 2023
Carlson interjected to suggest Musk’s claim is “pretty heavy duty.”
“Because a lot of well-known people, reporters talking to their sources, government officials, the rich people of the world, they’re DMing each other,” he continued, adding, “And the assumption obviously was incorrect, but was that was private. But that was being read by various governments.”
Musk responded, “Yes.
He went on to share that Twitter will be rolling out a new feature later this month or in May that will allow users to encrypt their direct messages.
The feature would allow users to “toggle” the encryption on or off.
“So if you are in a conversation you think is sensitive, you can just toggle encryption on. And then no one at Twitter can see what you’re talking about,” Musk shared.
He added, “You could put a gun to my head and I couldn’t tell you…That’s how it should be.”
Musk also said he has not received “direct” complaints from governments about his plan.
However, he has received some “indirect complaints” and speculated people might be concerned about complaining to him because he might tweet about their comments.