<\/p>\n
Elon Musk is adding allegations from Twitter security whistleblower Peiter \u201cMudge\u201d Zatko to his list of reasons for pulling out of the $44 billion Twitter acquisition he proposed back in April.<\/p>\n
Musk\u2019s messy acquisition bid has taken numerous twists and turns since April, with the\u00a0Tesla and SpaceX CEO ultimately deciding that he didn\u2019t want to buy Twitter after all, citing a lack of clarity over Twitter\u2019s bot data. However, Twitter has refused to recognize Musk\u2019s termination bid, pursuing legal action to force Musk to honor his original offer \u2014 a trial is currently scheduled for October 17.<\/p>\n
In a fresh filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Musk\u2019s legal team provided an additional notice of termination of the deal, citing revelations made by Twitter\u2019s former head of security last week. Zatko, who was fired by Twitter back in January after a little more than a year in the role, said that the social network deceived everyone about the strength of its security protocols, noting that he witnessed \u201cegregious deficiencies, negligence, wilful ignorance, and threats to national security and democracy\u201d at the company. Zatko also said that Twitter tried to conceal its shortcomings from regulators and investors.<\/p>\n
While it\u2019s not clear to what extent Zatko\u2019s whistleblowing efforts may boost Musk\u2019s attempts to renege on his acquisition offer, they certainly give him more ammunition. Yesterday, news emerged that his legal team had subpoenaed Zatko, seeking evidence related to spam, security vulnerabilities, alleged foreigns pies working at Twitter, and basically anything that might help support Musk\u2019s case.<\/p>\n
As the SEC filing shows, Musk\u2019s legal team are trying to bolster their position in the event that their previously submitted termination notice \u201cis determined invalid for any reason.\u201d So basically, if Musk\u2019s arguments that Twitter has undercounted its bot data doesn\u2019t stick, it wants more factors to fall back on.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Zatko Complaint alleges far-reaching misconduct at Twitter \u2014 all of which was disclosed to Twitter\u2019s directors and senior executives, including Parag Agrawal (Twitter\u2019s CEO) \u2014 that is likely to have severe consequences for Twitter\u2019s business,\u201d Musk\u2019s legal representative Mike Ringler wrote. \u201cFor example, Mr. Zatko alleges that Twitter is in material noncompliance with both its obligations under a 2011 FTC consent decree and its general obligations under data privacy, unfair trade practice, and consumer protection laws and regulations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ringler pointed to other allegations made by Zatko, including one that Twitter is \u201cuniquely vulnerable\u00a0to systemic disruption\u201d resulting from data center failures or malicious actors, which Twitter\u2019s leadership team have allegedly tried to hide. He also highlighted Zatko\u2019s allegation that Twitter gave in to demands made by the Indian government that Twitter hire its agents and be given access to user data.<\/p>\n
In short, Musk and his legal team are now looking for more ways that Twitter may have breached the terms of their merger agreement \u2014 and it really needs Zatko to help.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Elon Musk is adding allegations from Twitter security whistleblower Peiter \u201cMudge\u201d Zatko to his list of reasons for pulling out of the $44 billion Twitter acquisition he proposed back in April. Musk\u2019s messy acquisition bid has taken numerous twists and turns since April, with the\u00a0Tesla and SpaceX CEO ultimately deciding that he didn\u2019t want to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1194709,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1194708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrity-gossip"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1194708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1194708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1194708\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1194708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1194708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1194708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}