The former security head of Twitter has come out with information that might support Elon Musk’s request to withdraw from a $44 billion acquisition of the social media giant, and his legal team is requesting to speak with him.
According to Peiter Zatko’s attorney and court documents, Musk’s team sent a subpoena to the former Twitter executive on Saturday. Zatko also goes by the hacker alias “Mudge.”
The wealthy Tesla CEO has spent months claiming that the business he agreed to purchase undercounted its bogus and spam accounts, and that as a consequence, he shouldn’t be required to complete the transaction.
Jack Dorsey, a friend and the former CEO of Twitter, has also been subpoenaed.
Twitter has filed a lawsuit against Musk in the Delaware Court of Chancery in an attempt to compel him to finalise the April agreement.
The firm claims that because of deteriorating market circumstances and the purchase no longer serving his interests, Musk acted in bad faith and is actively attempting to kill the agreement.
In the forthcoming trial set for October 17 in Delaware, Musk may benefit from Zatko’s whistleblower charge that Twitter deceived authorities about its privacy and security precautions as well as its capacity to identify and weed out phoney accounts.
Until he was let go at the beginning of this year, Zatko oversaw security at Twitter. His lawsuit alleges that Twitter’s security, privacy, and content moderation policies have “severe, egregious inadequacies.”
A deal with the Federal Trade Commission requires the corporation to have a security strategy, which executives allegedly misled about the firm’s strength to federal authorities.
When the allegation became known, Twitter disputed his accusations, claiming Zatko was sacked “for poor performance and weak leadership.”
“What we’ve seen so far is a misleading narrative that is devoid of crucial context, rife with contradictions and falsehoods, and concerning Twitter and our privacy and data security procedures.
The accusations made by Mr. Zatko and his opportunistic timing seem to be intended to garner attention and hurt Twitter, its users, and its stockholders.
At Twitter, security and privacy have always been and will remain top concerns “The business said in a statement.
Asserting that he had “repeatedly voiced concerns about Twitter’s catastrophically insufficient information security procedures to the Company’s Executive Committee and Board of Directors during his career,” Zatko’s attorneys termed Twitter’s statement praising his performance “false.”