Former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has said billionaire and X owner Elon Musk could become a “political puppet master” in the US.
Clegg, who is now Mark Zuckerberg’s second-in-command at Meta, where he is president of global affairs, made the comments on Nick Robinson’s Political Thinking podcast.
When asked if Musk was a threat to democracy, Clegg said the businessman was “playing a big role” in the US election and the new formation of the Trump administration.
He also stood by comments labeling Metta’s social media rival, X, as “a one-man, highly biased, ideological hobbyist”.
The former Liberal Democrat leader, who served as David Cameron’s deputy prime minister in the 2010 coalition government, swapped Westminster for Silicon Valley. Lost his Sheffield Hallam seat to Labour. In the 2017 general elections
In 2022, he was Promoted to senior role. From Zuckerberg, with responsibility for policy as well as communications and a reported bonus of £10m on top of his £2.7m annual salary.
He is the voice of Meta, who owns Facebook and Instagram, on many controversial issues since then.
In his interview with Nick Robinson, he talked about how his character is making decisions on Meta about balancing freedom of expression with protecting audiences from harmful content.
In contrast, Musk has spoken of his mission to “remove all censorship” from X, with Clegg saying “you can’t move. [on X]… for a desire to trespass on the goods by the person who now privately owns them.”
When asked if Musk was “a threat to democracy”, Clegg said: “I think Elon Musk is obviously playing a big role now both in the election and now in the formation of the new US administration.
“And I think it will look like he has a choice – he can either be an avid and well-heeled supporter… or he can try and be a sort of political… puppet master. could become, going beyond Trump, deciding who the next Republican should be and the one after that, and so on.”
He added that people were familiar with the former because “people with resources” are often involved in politics, but the latter is “quite different from the normal tradition of American democracy”.
The former Lib Dem leader also highlighted the benefits of creative AI, mocking the idea that the technology will “turn us all into paperclips by next Tuesday”.
He claimed that fears that “AI is going to destroy democracy” are rife, particularly fears that democracy will be “overrun by deep fakes of AI” in 2024, the year the world’s largest in history. There were more elections.
While he admitted that that didn’t mean there hadn’t been attempts to use AI to spread disinformation this year, he did say that “the dog that hasn’t barked in a big way is AI.” ” And safeguards within the industry meant that this was not the case. “The End of the World”.
“It has a paralyzing effect when we talk about an almost imaginary fear,” he added, and a renewed focus on tackling “real” issues around child sexual abuse, deep fakes and misinformation. Emphasis on focus.
Responding to criticism from campaigners and governments that Meta is not doing enough to tackle harmful content on its platforms, Clegg said: “I don’t think anyone has ever done enough.
“And I think the issue is how kids interact with the online world, how much smartphone they use, how they use social media apps, you should never think that work It’s done.”