According to a former Twitter executive, the corporation deceived federal authorities about the social media giant’s security dangers, which might assist Elon Musk’s effort to avoid the $44 billion purchase of the company.
So far, Musk and Twitter’s legal battle has centred on charges that the corporation deceived the billionaire about the amount of spam accounts on its social networking platform.
Former Twitter security chief Peter Zatko highlights additional areas that Musk would focus on in his legal battle, including as charges that Twitter neglected to disclose security and data privacy flaws.
Tulane Law School professor Anne Lipton said the ex-Twitter official’s allegations give a “new ground for fraud.”
It is unclear whether and how Musk’s team would utilise Zatko’s information, while Musk’s attorney, Alex Spiro, said on Tuesday that a request to call Zatko over what he said has been presented to the court.
“We thought his resignation and the departure of other important workers to be intriguing as to what is going on within the organisation,” Spiro said in a statement.
In late trading, Twitter’s stock was down 5.9 percent to $40.44 a share.
Musk, the world’s richest person and CEO of Tesla, announced on Twitter in July that he would buy the firm for $54.20 per share.
He did, however, accuse Twitter of failing to disclose the exact amount of spam accounts on its social networking platform, which the business estimated at 5% in its disclosures, and Musk stated that he relied on such disclosures when making his offer to purchase the firm.
Since then, Twitter and Musk have exchanged lawsuits, with Twitter asking a Delaware judge to force Musk to finish the agreement, and the trial is set to begin on October 17.
In his lawsuit, Zatko claimed that Twitter misled authorities about its sophisticated security plan.
He added that he had alerted colleagues that half of the company’s servers were using outdated and invalid software, according to a redacted version of his complaint.
Legal experts said that allegations of Twitter’s failure to disclose security and privacy risks may be easier for Musk to substantiate than allegations that the company miscalculated the number of spam accounts.
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