Twitter Whistleblower’s Shocking Claims Could Impact Company’s Legal War with Elon Musk

Recent claims made in a whistleblower complaint by Twitter’s former security chief could play a key role in the ongoing legal battle between Tesla CEO Elon Musk and the social media platform.

The Washington Post reports that Elon Musk was quick to take note of recent allegations about Twitter’s handling of bot and spam accounts made by the company’s former security chief, Peiter Zatko.

Zatko alleges that Twitter has been “lying” about the number of bots on its platform, particularly to Musk who terminated his $44 billion acquisition of the platform. Musk has long claimed that while Twitter alleges that bots account for approximately five percent of its platform, the number is closer to 20 percent.

Zatko alleges that Twitter arrives at its official percentage of bots by only sampling from a subset of accounts known as “monetizable daily active users,” or mDAUs. But this metric, which was created to give advertisers an idea of how many real humans are looking at their ads, already is designed to exclude bots.

Musk’s legal team is due to appear in Delaware Chancery Court on Wednesday for a hearing on his ability to demand information about Twitter’s internal practices and user data. One source claims that Musk’s team is likely to use Zatko’s whistleblower complaint to bolster their arguments against Twitter and seek more time.

Twitter has disputed Zatko’s claims, with a spokesperson stating: “Twitter fully stands by … our statements about the percentage of spam accounts on our platform, and the work we do to fight spam on the platform, generally.”

Alex Spiro, a partner at Quinn Emanuel who is representing Musk in his legal battle with Twitter commented: “We have already issued a subpoena for Mr. Zatko, and we found his exit and that of other key employees curious in light of what we have been finding.”

Read more at the Washington Post here.

Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan