Humza Yousaf ‘certain’ Elon Musk has access to his private messages on X

Humza Yousaf has said he checked his private messages on X, formerly known as Twitter, when Elon Musk suggested the former first minster had been “racist” in his private communications. 

Yousaf said he checked his private messages to make sure he had not made an “off-colour joke” but says “unsurprisingly” he found “there was nothing there”.  

The pair got into a spat on X during the UK summer riots that were sparked after the murder of three young girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Stockport in July. The riots had, in part, been fuelled by false information that the alleged killer was a Muslim refugee. 

During the correspondence, Musk called Yousaf a “scumbag” and dared him to sue.  

The billionaire also posted: “Legal discovery will show that however big a racist he’s been in public communications he is vastly worse in private communications.” 

Yousaf said that "caught him by surprise” and he “started to wonder what he was talking about”, so he checked his private messages on X, after assuming Musk “has access to X DMs (direct messages)”. 

The former first minister said “he is certain” that Musk has access to his private messages, and that he “scours the private messages of those that he sees as a threat”. 

He said: “I am certain he has a whole team of people who are looking at any information they can gather on me and try to use it to besmirch my reputation.” 

Asked on the Elon’s Spies podcast, which is produced by Tortoise Media, why he looked through his private messages to check if there was anything incriminating, the former first minister said: “It was more out of complete and utter confusion of what the heck he was talking about. A very pointed accusation that he’s trying to make, and most people who commented underneath are saying the same thing, you know, ‘Go on Elon, release his Twitter DMs’.  

“I’m thinking, I’ve been on Twitter for a long time, have I made an off-colour joke? Have I said something in a private communication? So, I thought I better do the belt and braces thing, and as I say there was nothing there, and unsurprisingly so.” 

He continued: “But here is somebody who is basically saying to me by the way ‘you better watch out; I’m going to release stuff on you and it’s going to make your life hell’.”  

Asked whether he was concerned Musk’s reference to “private communications” may have been in reference to communications Yousaf had made outside of X, he said “that is genuinely the fear”.  

Referencing a report that said Musk could become the world’s first trillionaire, the former first minister said he had “no doubt” that the owner of Tesla “would use that wealth in the most nefarious ways possible if he thought somebody was a threat or [he] took a dislike to them”.  

The pair have previously argued on the platform. In October last year, Musk, having seen an edited version of Yousaf’s now infamous ‘white, white, white’ speech in the Scottish Parliament in 2020, in which he told the chamber Scotland had a clear problem with structural racism, Musk branded him a “blatant racist”.   

The podcast notes that there is no evidence to suggest that Musk has accessed Yousaf’s private messages, on or off of X, and that Musk has denied having ever accessed private messages on the platform.