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Rumman Chowdhury, a data scientist, nonprofit founder, and former director of Twitter’s machine ethics team, had strong words for Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) during an SXSW panel on Thursday.
“When your funding is frozen and you don’t know if you’re gonna be fired, and there’s this, like, absolutely unhinged person saying weird things on the internet constantly, you still have to do your job, right?” Chowdhury said. “The lights have to be kept on because Elon Musk is not the one keeping the lights on, even though he would like you to think that.”
Musk and DOGE, which Musk is advising, have rushed to cut staff across U.S. federal agencies, in some cases in ways that compromise cybersecurity. The initiative has gutted the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, reduced headcount at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and fired probationary employees at the Federal Aviation Administration, among others.
Chowdhury fears the brain drain resulting from the dramatic reductions and chaotic management style. She says she saw a similar trend at Twitter back in 2022, when Musk acquired the platform for $43 billion. Chowdhury was one of many staff let go at short notice after Musk’s takeover.
“So some estimates say about 20% of [Twitter] had already left before [Musk] even took over, and then he fired another 30% on top of that, right?” Chowdhury said. “So we’re talking a big chunk of the company being just gone, whether of their own volition or not, but I think the most important thing was that just the looming shadow of [Musk’s] existence completely killed the culture of Twitter.”
Chowdhury added, “[I]t’s scary to see that happening to the U.S. government, an institution that matters significantly in every American’s life and even to people beyond American borders. Twitter was a company, yes — it was an impactful company, but it’s not the same as a government. […] [Musk] breeds chaotic environments, and chaos is not where good work happens.”
Chowdhury also took issue with Musk’s vision for Twitter — now X — which she said ties in with his approach to politics. She accused Musk of using X as a propoganda tool for his own ideology — a “megaphone” to push his perspective to the world.
“Like, I don’t think there’s any debate or discussion to be had here,” Chowdhury said. “I don’t think [former Twitter CEO] Jack Dorsey acted anywhere near the way Elon Musk [has] — he was not on Twitter every day with his opinions, blocking people, you know, amplifying others, calling some people terrorists — like, Jack did not act that way.”
One report found that Musk shared misleading claims about the 2024 U.S. presidential election that were viewed nearly 1.2 billion times on X. In posts this year, Musk has repeatedly made false assertions about federal spending, Ukrainian aggression, and the role of offices like the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Musk has gone so far as to question X’s own fact-checking system, Community Notes, after it corrected posts on X that claimed Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the country’s elected president, had low approval ratings among its citizens. “Unfortunately, Community Notes is increasingly being gamed by governments and legacy media,” Musk claimed without evidence in a post.
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