Elon Musk Promises (Again) Encrypted DMs Are Coming To Twitter

Elon Musk says Twitter’s direct messages (DMs) are going to be encrypted in an effort to make it harder for intelligence agencies around the world to access private communications, according to an interview the Twitter CEO gave to Tucker Carlson of Fox News that aired Monday night. The only problem, of course, is that Musk has been promising encrypted DMs since he took over the company in October 2022.

“So one of the things that we’re about to release is the ability to encrypt your DMs,” Musk told Carlson after alleging the U.S. government had “full access” to direct messages on Twitter before he arrived.

“That’s pretty heavy duty though because a lot of well-known people, reporters talking to their sources, government officials, the rich people in the world, they’re DMing each other. And the assumption, obviously, was incorrect but was that that’s private but that was being read by various governments?” Carlson asked.

“Yeah. Yes,” Musk replied.

Carlson called it “scary” before Musk elaborated on his plans for encrypted DMs on the social media platform.

“So like I said, we’re moving to have the DMs be optionally encrypted. I mean, there’s like a lot of DM conversations which are just chatting with friends—not important. It’s hopefully coming out later this month, but no later than next month,” Musk said.

Musk’s claims about U.S. government spying on Twitter were first released as part of a teaser over the weekend. But as I wrote on Sunday, there are a lot of follow-up questions that should be asked, and it turns out Carlson did not do his job in that regard. If the government’s access to private Twitter DMs is more nefarious than something that’s simply handed over through a court order, how did it work? Did the government just constantly monitor everyone’s messages? What mechanism was used for this surveillance?

Perhaps just as alarming, does this mean Elon Musk or anyone else at Twitter currently has access to user DMs? What kind of protections are in place to protect the privacy of users from snooping employees who may be curious about what celebrities are saying in DMs or about what an ex-partner might be saying on the service?

We didn’t get any answers to questions like these, which seems important if you’re going to allege the U.S. government has been spying on Americans through Twitter.

Musk also took the interview as an opportunity to talk about his aspirations with AI. Musk recently called for a six-month pause in all AI development, but has been secretly working behind the scenes on his own AI, even forming a company in Nevada called X.AI. Musk says his goal is to create a “third option” beyond Google and OpenAI’s artificial intelligence projects, which he dubs Truth GPT. Musk also told a story about Google co-founder Larry Page, who called Musk a speciesist, according to Musk—the suggestion being that it would be weird for Musk to give preference to humans.

Musk has been a lightning rod of controversy since the billionaire bought Twitter back in October 2022. Musk immediately fired thousands of workers at the company and allowed many users who were previously banned back onto the platform. But Musk apparently realized pretty quickly why the social media site had rules against extremist speech to begin with, and has banned many of the people he allowed back on, including neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes and Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West.

Many advertisers also paused campaigns on Twitter after Musk took over. And although the CEO claims “most” of those advertisers have returned to the social media platform, leaked emails show that many marketing executives at some of America’s biggest brands are nervous about appearing with Musk at the Possible Conference in Miami on Tuesday.

Perhaps anticipating the backlash of appearing on the show of Tucker Carlson, a white supremacist who once called Iraqis “semi-literate primitive monkeys,” Musk has insisted he’s doing interviews from “across the political spectrum.”

“BBC’s SF division is ‘left wing’, as evidenced by the questions he asked,” Musk tweeted on April 14, referring to a recent interview with the BBC.

“Tucker is ‘right wing’. Next week, I will do interviews with moderate & slightly left media,” Musk wrote.

It’s not clear what “moderate” and “slightly left media” Musk will be interviewed by this week. But it should be interesting to watch, that’s for sure. The second part of Carlson’s interview with Musk is scheduled to air on Tuesday.