Elon Musk is a ‘political puppet grasp’, says Clegg
Billionaire and X proprietor Elon Musk is turning into a “political puppet grasp” within the US, former deputy prime minister Nick Clegg has mentioned.
Clegg, who’s now Mark Zuckerberg’s second-in-command at Meta, the place he’s the president for world affairs, made the feedback to Nick Robinson’s Political Considering podcast.
When requested whether or not Musk was a menace to democracy, Clegg mentioned the entrepreneur had been “taking part in an outsized function” within the US election and within the formation of the brand new Trump administration.
He additionally stood by feedback labelling Meta’s social media rival, X, a “one-man, hyper-partisan, ideological hobbyhorse”.
The previous Liberal Democrat chief, who served as deputy PM to David Cameron in 2010’s coalition authorities, swapped Westminster for Silicon Valley after dropping his Sheffield Hallam seat to Labour within the 2017 common election.
In 2022, he was promoted to a senior function by Zuckerberg, with duty for coverage in addition to communication and a reported bonus of £10m on high of his £2.7m annual wage.
He has been the voice of Meta, which owns Fb and Instagram, on a variety of extremely controversial points since then.
In his interview with Nick Robinson, he spoke about how his function was making judgements about methods to steadiness freedom of expression with defending audiences from dangerous content material on Meta.
In distinction, Musk has spoken of his mission to “take away all of the censorship” from X, with Clegg saying “you may’t transfer [on X]… for need of tripping over stuff from from the one that now privately owns it”.
When requested if Musk was “a menace to democracy”, Clegg mentioned: “I believe Elon Musk is clearly now taking part in an outsized function in each the election and now the formation of the brand new US administration.
“And I believe it would see he has a alternative – he will be both an avid and well-heeled supporter… Or he can attempt to change into a type of political…puppet grasp, going nicely past Trump, deciding who the following Republican candidate ought to be and the one after that, and so forth, so forth.”
He added individuals have been aware of the previous as a result of “individuals with means” usually get entangled in politics, however the latter “is is kind of totally different to the final custom of American democracy”.
The previous Lib Dem chief additionally highlighted the advantages of generative AI, mocking the concept the expertise would “flip us all into paperclips by subsequent Tuesday”.
He claimed fears that “AI was going to destroy democracy” have been over-egged, significantly fears that democracy would “up-ended by AI deep fakes” in 2024, the 12 months with probably the most elections world wide in historical past.
Though he conceded that did not imply there weren’t deep fakes or makes an attempt to make use of AI to unfold misinformation this 12 months, he mentioned “the canine that, broadly, has not barked is AI” and safeguards throughout the trade meant it wasn’t “the top of the world”.
He added “it has a paralysing impact after we discuss nearly fictional fears” and urged a renewed give attention to coping with “actual” points round baby intercourse abuse, deep fakes and disinformation.
Responding to criticism from campaigners and governments that Meta is just not doing sufficient to deal with dangerous content material on its platforms, Clegg mentioned: “I do not assume anybody’s ever doing sufficient.
“And I believe this difficulty of how youngsters work together with the net world, how a lot they use smartphones, how they use social media apps is one thing that it is best to by no means, ever assume that the job is completed.”
