Rumman Chowdhury, a data scientist, nonprofit founder and former director of Twitter’s Machine Ethics team, had strong words to Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) on Thursday’s panel at SXSW.
“When your funds are frozen and you don’t know if you’ll be fired or not, and as absolutely indifferent people always say strange things on the internet, do you still have to do your job?” Choudhry said. “Even though Elon Musk wants you to think about it, Elon Musk is not someone who keeps the lights, so you need to keep the lights.”
Musk advises Mask and Doge are rushing to cut staff across federal agencies in the US in ways that compromise cybersecurity. The initiative has hampered the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, cut down on National Highway Traffic Safety Administration personnel, and fired probation employees, particularly at the Federal Aviation Administration.
Chowdhury fears brain drainage due to dramatic reductions and chaotic management styles. She says she saw a similar trend on Twitter in 2022, when Musk acquired the platform for $43 billion. Chowdhury was one of many staff members who were quickly let go after Musk’s acquisition.
“So some estimates say that around 20% of (Twitter) have already been taken over, and on top of that, they fired another 30%, right?” Choudhry said. “So, I think that the majority of the company, whether it’s your own will or not, is gone, the most important thing is that only the looming shadow of (musk’s) existence has completely killed Twitter culture.”
Chowdhury said, “(i) it’s scary to see what’s happening to the US government. This is an institution that is important, important to all American lives, and even to those who cross the US border. Twitter was a company, yes – it was an impactful company, but that’s not the same as the government. (…) (Musk) Breeding chaotic environments, chaos is not where good work occurs.”
Chowdhury also had issues with Musk’s vision for Twitter (now X). She accused the mask of using it as a propaganda tool for his own ideology. A “megaphone” that lifts his perspective into the world.
“I don’t think there’s any debate or debate here, like that,” Choudhry said. “I don’t think (former Twitter CEO) Jack Dorsey acted like Elon Musk. He didn’t have an opinion every day, blocking people, amplifying others, calling some people terrorists.
One report found Musk shares misleading claims about the 2024 US presidential election, which he has seen around 1.2 billion times on X. In this year’s post, Musk makes false and false claims about federal spending, Ukrainian invasions, and the role of offices like the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Musk is questioning X’s own fact-checking system. The community is after the country’s elected president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, revised X’s post that claimed it had a low recognition rating among its citizens. “Unfortunately, community memos are increasingly being gamed by the government and legacy media,” Musk argued in the mail without evidence.