Elon Musk claims the US Government had 'full access' to your private Twitter DMs

Twitter CEO Elon Musk has claimed the U.S. government had access to users private messages on Twitter.

In a wide-ranging interview with Fox News' Tucker Carlson, set to be broadcast on Monday and Tuesday night, Musk made the startling claims noting how he was shocked to learn that the government had full access to private communications on the platform.

The billionaire tycoon told Carlson how unaware of the fact until he joined the company and expressed surprise at the degree to which government agencies were able to monitor social media.

'The degree to which government agencies effectively had full access to everything that was going on on Twitter blew my mind,' Musk said. 'I was not aware of that.'

Twitter owner and CEO Elon Musk has claimed in a new interview how the U.S. government had complete access to users private messages on Twitter

The wide-ranging interview with Tucker Carlson, pictured, is set to be broadcast on Monday and Tuesday night

'Would that include people's DMs?' Carlson probed.

'Yes,' Musk replied.

The extensive interview with Carlson is set to air over the next two nights.

Musk's admission that agencies had full access to everything happening on Twitter, including direct messages, is likely to raise concerns among users who may have assumed that their private conversations were entirely private and secure. 

While it is unclear how long the government had such access, Musk's comments suggest the situation is far more widespread than many may have considered.

In addition to discussing government surveillance of social media, Musk also expressed concerns about the dangers of artificial intelligence. 

In an alarmist view, Musk stated that he believes AI has the potential to cause the downfall of civilization.

'AI is more dangerous than, say, mismanaged aircraft design or production maintenance, or bad car production in the sense that it has the potential — however small one may regard that probability, but it is non-trivial — it has the potential for civilizational destruction,' Musk said.

Twitter owner Elon Musk (left) gave an interview to the BBC's US tech journalist James Clayton

Last week, in another interview with the BBC, Musk, a self-confessed workaholic, confirmed he sometimes sleeps on a sofa in a library in Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters. 

The Tesla and SpaceX boss was criticized for cutting half the company's full-time staff in one week, ending remote working and setting an ultimatum for remaining staff to agree to longer, more intense working patterns or leave. 

It led to concerns that the platform could struggle to survive with the reduced maintenance team and available engineers.

Musk admitted that shutting down one of Twitter's service centers had ended up being 'quite catastrophic' as it resulted in the platform losing a large amount of its functionality.

He also said the business was now ‘roughly breaking even’, could be profitable again soon and he would be open to selling to the right person. 

Musk also revealed legacy blue checkmarks will finally be removed this week. 

Musk stated last month that legacy-verified Twitter users would see their blue ticks removed from the service on April 1, unless they paid a monthly fee of $8 to its Twitter Blue subscription operation.

As a result, thousands of the platform's high-profile users were braced to lose the ticks, which can help verify their identity and distinguish them from imposters.

But the legacy blue ticks have remained in place past the original deadline of April 1.