Just before Elon Musk revived the offer to buy Twitter, he alleged that the company ordered a messenger to destroy evidence.
Just before that Elon Musk revived proposed purchase of Twitter Inc. last week, the billionaire accused the company of ordering a whistleblower to destroy evidence of its mistakes as part of a $7.8 million severance package.
Peiter Zatko, Twitter’s former chief privacy officer, said he burned 10 handwritten notebooks and deleted 100 computer files at the behest of company managers as part of a separation agreement, according to the filing. The court was sealed on October 3. The books contain records of the whistleblower’s meetings with corporate partners during his year-long tenure as chief of security, records show.
Zatko is at the heart of Musk’s arguments that Twitter misled him about a series of operational issues at the social media platform — which justified walking away with a $44 billion acquisition. The billionaire then reversed course last week and agreed to buy back the company at an initial price of $54.20 per share.
“Twitter’s attempt to buy back Mr. Zatko’s silence has failed, but Twitter has achieved its second purpose of making sure Mr. Zatko’s credential never comes to light,” the lawyer said. Musk said in the unsealed filing.
Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the filing, which is part of a lawsuit Twitter aims to force Musk to complete an acquisition that has been paused.
Judge Kathaleen St. Delaware Chancery’s J. McCormick has put the case on hold and set an October 28 deadline for Musk and Twitter to close the deal. Musk’s lawyers are asking McCormick to punish Twitter’s lawyers for ordering the destruction of potential evidence in the case.
Zatko created a stir in Washington when he testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee last month that Twitter’s lax approach to computer security is threatened WE National security.
Twitter said it fired Zatko in January for poor performance and said he had come up with “a false story about Twitter and our privacy and data security inconsistent and inaccurate practices and a lack of significant context. ”
Zatko thinks he warned the Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal about the serious computer security issues and privacy concerns associated with the operation of the social media platform resulting in a violation of agreements the company has reached with its regulators. government. He also said his Twitter colleagues showed little interest in diving into how many Spam and robot accounts were included among the company’s more than 230 million users.
Musk’s lawyers accuse two of Twitter’s top lawyers, Vijaya Gadde and Sean Edgett, and Chief Privacy Officer Damien Kieran, along with Agrawal, of trying to cover up violations of the company. legal resolved by ordering Zatko to destroy his documents.
The document destruction order stripped “substantial evidence corroborating Mr. Zatko’s allegations”, which would support his account of important meetings and conversations related to this case. ,” according to unsealed records.
Meanwhile, Twitter complained in its own unsealed filing that Jared Birchall – a top aide to Musk – appeared before the September 21 trial in the case without being prepared to pay. Answer questions about a variety of transaction-related matters.
“Throughout the process of being brought down, Birchall emphatically acknowledged both her ignorance and lack of preparation – topic after topic,” Twitter’s legal team said in the filing. Birchall runs Musk’s family office and is deeply involved in negotiations over the social media platform’s acquisition.
Twitter’s lawyers said Birchall had little or no communication with government regulators about the deal, hiring data scientists to review spam counts or robot accounts embedded in Twitter’s customer base or Musk’s attempt to retrieve transaction-related messages.
A spokesman for Musk’s attorney did not immediately respond on Monday to a request for comment on Twitter’s complaints about Birchall’s ouster performance.
The lawsuit is Twitter v Musk, 22-0613, Delaware Premier Court (Wilmington).
