“On June 28, 2022, Twitter entered into a separation agreement with Peiter Zatko, pursuant to which, Twitter paid severance payments to Mr. Zatko and his attorneys totaling $7.75 million,” the attorneys for the Tesla boss in a letter to the platform’s legal director on Friday.
They accuse Twitter of not having asked Elon Musk for his consent for this exceptional payment and, therefore, according to them, of having violated the rules of the agreement to buy the network for 44 billion signed by the two parties at the end. april.
Third letter on file
At the beginning of July, the multi-billionaire had announced to break this commitment, accusing the San Francisco company of having deceived him, in particular on the question of the exact number of inauthentic accounts and spam. Twitter quickly filed a complaint to force the contractor to honor the terms of the agreement. A trial is scheduled for mid-October.
This is the third letter that Elon Musk’s lawyers have sent to the group to justify their decision. The first was that of the announcement of the rupture. The second, at the end of August, invokes the accusations made by the company’s former security chief, Peiter Zatko, as an additional argument.
Nicknamed “Mudge”, Mr Zatko accused Twitter of covering up vulnerabilities in its protection system and lying about its fight against fake accounts. Posing as a whistleblower, he sent a lengthy document to US authorities in early July, but it was not revealed to the general public until late August.
According to Twitter’s lawyer, Mr. Zatko’s accusations are riddled with “inconsistencies and inaccuracies”.