Twitter whistleblower complaint could help Elon Musk in legal battle

Twitter’s former head of security alleges that the company failed to disclose the true extent of spam and automated accounts.

FrankLin FrankLin
Aug 23, 2022 - 21:01
0 32
Twitter whistleblower complaint could help Elon Musk in legal battle

A whistleblower complaint alleging that Twitter Inc. ignored a rash of spam and bot accounts in its customer base will help Elon Musk in his effort to walk away from a $44 billion buyout of the company, legal experts say. 

Peiter Zatko, Twitter’s former head of security, has alerted US authorities to “egregious deficiencies” in the social media company’s defenses against hackers and about executives’ failure to disclose the true extent of spam and automated accounts on the platform, the Washington Post reported Tuesday. 

Zatko, who was fired from Twitter about six months ago, said he had raised concerns at the company in early 2021 and was told by the head of site integrity that Twitter didn’t know how many bots were on the platform, according to the Post. 

If Zatko’s assertions are true, “that’s just the kind of smoking gun Musk had to be pinning his hopes on,” said Larry Hamermesh, a University of Pennsylvania law professor who specializes in merger-and-acquisition disputes.

At the center of Musk’s defense against a lawsuit by Twitter to make the billionaire complete the buyout is the quality of Twitter’s customer base.

Twitter was not immediately available for comment.