Billionaire Elon Musk has continued his ongoing efforts to distance himself from his decision to buy Twitter. This time he is relying on new claims by the company’s former security chief, Peiter Zatko, that Twitter lied to federal regulators about its security measures and spam figures.
Zatko also pointed to poorly enforced security protocols that put users’ personal information at risk, as well as the social media company’s risk of violating a settlement agreement with federal regulators, and the Indian government’s pressure on Twitter to hire two government officials with access to sensitive information. Musk promptly cited those complaints in new legal claims, claiming that Twitter was flawed and engaged in fraud by concealing such outrageous problems.
For Ann Lipton, a professor at Tulane University Law School, Musk’s claims seemed like an incredibly long shot argument. “The other allegations hair-raising data security and intellectual property, those at least have a lot more potential.”
Twitter, however, said in a regulatory filing that the new notice of termination was invalid under the terms of the contract.
The trial is scheduled to begin on October 17 in Delaware. Musk has asked for a postponement so that his legal team can gather more information about what happened inside Twitter.
The sources for this piece include an article in NPR.