<\/p>\n
Elon Musk\u2019s attorneys brought new allegations from a whistle-blower to court Wednesday as additional ammo in their long-shot case to walk away from buying social media giant Twitter.<\/p>\n
The explosive whistle-blower complaint became a talking point for Musk\u2019s attorneys throughout the one-and-a-half hour hearing, which was scheduled for the attorneys to request more information on Twitter\u2019s user data on spam and bots \u2013 a key point in Musk\u2019s claim he was misled and can back out of the deal.<\/p>\n
The complaint, which was obtained by The Washington Post and cited by Musk\u2019s attorneys, alleges egregious security deficiencies and ineffective methods for counting bots at the social media giant.<\/p>\n
For Musk\u2019s lawyers, it was the opening salvo in a strategy that is expected to lean more heavily on the claims of whistle-blower Peiter Zatko, Twitter\u2019s former Twitter head of security.<\/p>\n
\u201cMr Zatko, who was responsible for much of this \u2013 including processing and removing various spam bots \u2013 he was not some low-level employee,\u201d said Musk\u2019s attorney Alex Spiro. \u201dHe was one of the top handful of officers in the company.\u201c<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way Mr Zatko put it, management had no appetite to properly measure bot accounts,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Twitter\u2019s attorneys, on the other hand, stood their ground on the data requests, citing the sensitivity of the information.<\/p>\n
In the 84-page complaint obtained by The Post, Zatko alleges Twitter was lying to Musk about bots and spammy accounts, and that the site had egregious security deficiencies that cast doubt on the validity of its statements to federal regulators \u2013 and possibly also to Musk. <\/p>\n
Still, there was little hard documentation to back up his claims on spam and bots, and he exited the company months before Musk decided to acquire the company.<\/p>\n
Musk\u2019s and Twitter\u2019s attorneys were appearing in Delaware Chancery Court for a discovery hearing in their ongoing dispute. <\/p>\n
Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, announced he was terminating his $44 billion agreement to buy Twitter in July over concerns relating to Twitter\u2019s tallying of bot and spam profiles, which Musk alleges vastly underestimates the true number of inauthentic accounts. <\/p>\n
Twitter sued Musk alleging breach of contract days later. Musk filed a countersuit in late July.<\/p>\n
Musk had become increasingly vocal about his concerns with spam and bots amid a downturn in tech stocks and pressure on Tesla started to cut into his net worth. That had led to questions over Musk\u2019s ability to finance the deal.<\/p>\n
The hearing Wednesday concerned the ability of Musk\u2019s team to demand information about Twitter\u2019s internal practices and data.<\/p>\n
The judge previously ruled against Musk\u2019s team when it sought to collect information from more than 20 company leaders. One of those leaders that Musk\u2019s team had requested information from was Zatko. But the judge turned the request down, raising the possibility that Musk\u2019s side will use the new revelations to revisit the request.<\/p>\n
Twitter has previously disputed the characterisations made by the whistle-blower and by Musk regarding spam and bots. Several leading artificial intelligence experts have publicly supported Twitter\u2019s methodology for its spam and bot calculations.<\/p>\n
Twitter attorney Bradley Wilson argued in court Wednesday that spam counts were merely an estimate, supported by regulatory disclosures that emphasised the inexact nature of the count.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have an inherently subjective assessment,\u201d Wilson said. \u201dTwitter was making an estimate and it was very candid that that\u2019s what it was doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also noted that some of Musk\u2019s team\u2019s requests \u201cexplicitly seek private data\u201d that the company was not willing to give away, including user IP addresses, phone numbers, and information about users\u2019 locations.<\/p>\n
The hearing opened on Wednesday with Spiro arguing that the Twitter was flip-flopping on its reasoning for not offering data to Musk\u2019s team, data he says is important to figuring out what\u2019s actually going on at the social media company.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s this back and forth, and every single time, the goal posts seem to move,\u201d Spiro alleged, referring to asks for more data related to spam and bots.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are the would-be buyer here and we don\u2019t even know what exists,\u201d Spiro alleged of the data he alleged Twitter is stonewalling. \u201cIt puts us at a huge disadvantage.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also alleged it has been engaging in deception around its user numbers for a long time. He argued that Twitter\u2019s growth was flattening for years, and that the company changed how it calculated its user numbers in 2019 to appear that there was more growth. Spiro said this underlying deception is one reason the judge should grant their claims for more data.<\/p>\n
Twitter has said it invented the new way to calculate growth, in 2019, to give a clearer picture of the company\u2019s status to investors.<\/p>\n
Spiro brought up allegations directly from Zatko\u2019s complaint, claiming that Twitter shut down a key tool, internally called ROPO, for \u201cread-only phone only\u201d, which blocks an account from tweeting until a user can prove it is linked to a real person. He claimed that a senior executive planned to shut it down entirely. The Post previously reported that ROPO was never shut down and that the executive proposed an overhaul, not a shutdown.<\/p>\n
Wilson argued against turning over private data to Musk\u2019s team, citing user privacy concerns and the fears if such information \u201cfell into the wrong hands\u201d.<\/p>\n
He specifically pointed to Musk as an issue. Twitter would lose control of the data and anonymous speakers could be outed, as well as private messages disclosed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is someone who has publicly mocked Twitter. Who has insinuated that this litigation would be used as a vehicle for publicly disclosing Twitter\u2019s internal data. And who recently and publicly reaffirmed that if he is able to get out of the contract that he signed, his plan is to start a competing business,\u201d Wilson added.<\/p>\n