Peiter Zatko is a former Twitter head of security acting as a whistleblower for the wrongdoings of the company. Apparently, additional to this he is a source that Elon Musk is willing to use to his advantage.
Elon Musk has officially added Zatko’s claims to the list of reasons for terminating the $44 billion Twitter deal. He also is up to trying to delay the trial by claiming he and his team need time to process all the documents and data needed for the trial.
Elon Musk Puts Whistleblower Peiter Zatko Claims On The List Of Reasons For Terminating Twitter Deal
Zatko accused Twitter of ‘far-reaching misconduct’. Musk’s representatives took this to their own advantage and claim a further breach of the deal.
Twitter fired the whistleblower at the beginning of the year, in January. It took him several months to file a whistleblower complaint against Twitter in which he warned that the company was ‘grossly negligent in several areas of information security’.
“These allegations, if true, demonstrate that Twitter has breached the following provisions of the merger agreement. Thereby giving the Musk parties the right to terminate the merger agreement.” – Musk’s lawyers state in the letter sent to Twitter on Monday.
Of course, Musk and his legal team took advantage of the whistleblower. They’ve subpoenaed Zatko to the trial. He will need to be present on the trial upon request and present evidence as required. This is a major addition to Musk’s ‘fighting side’. Zatko might potentially present data enough for weighing the situation in Elon Musk’s favor. In addition to this, the trial that should have started on the 17th of October will most probably be delayed by at least a month.
Amongst Zatko’s ‘leaked information’, there is one that claims that the company has blocked all company laptops from updating the security fixes. What this essentially means is that the user data is vulnerable to hacks. Furthermore, Twitter’s board of directors is misled about these vulnerabilities.
According to Elon Musk, Zatko’s claims included a ‘company material adverse effect’ that altered Twitter’s stock market price. As a result of the above, the deal at $54 per share is now invalid.
Elon’s complaint also says that the current Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal breached the agreement additionally. He failed to disclose to Twitter’s board an internal report at the beginning of 2022. In addition to this, the complaint claims that Twitter has also committed fraud. Not disclosing the privacy, data protection, safety, and cybersecurity risks pointed out by Zatko means that Musk now has the right to terminate the deal.
From the Delaware court, they state they this is not the final legal skirmish before the trial. The court expects that many other things will come up along the way. In addition, they state that both sides have a reason to ask for a settlement.