We haven't seen Twitter arbitrarily leak DMs yet. Even Matt Taibbi said they only have access to screenshots of admin interfaces directly related to their specific stories around uncritical FBI/DHS access, shadowbanning for questionable political purposes, and the whole Trump thing. It's far from the ideological free-for-all people are suggesting.
But Elon has already shown he's willing to play dangerous games with his power. So far we haven't seen the FUDy stuff yet beyond the stupid new doxxing rule for which he's burned tons of good will. Nothing comes without costs.
And the moment it became inevitable that Musk took over Twitter I deleted my account. And that was one of many reasons.
The only two social media sites that I partake in are HN and up to Elons acquisition Twitter and that is because I had/have a fairly high degree of faith in their ability to at least try to do the right thing. With Musk, Zuckerberg and several others I have the conviction that given the opportunity that they will do the wrong thing.
Would you bet that Musk has not already abused his position to gain information from private communications on Twitter?
A hacker pulling off an exfiltration of the entire DB of any major tech company I'm very skeptical about that happening.
I mean NSA has had this capability for 25 years.
Under normal circumstances I would agree, but after firing so many people I can't imagine that security at Twitter is still priority #1, they likely have trouble keeping the lights on.
(I had a typo in my original comment btw; I said "surprising" but meant "unsurprising".)