Elon Musk has formally asked the former security chief of Twitter, who recently accused the platform of lies, to provide documents and testify in the legal proceedings against the social network.
In a document sent last month to two American regulators as well as to the Department of Justice, Peiter Zaitko, who presented himself as a whistleblower, blamed Twitter for its failing cybersecurity. He also accused the leaders of the San Francisco company of having deliberately overestimated publicly the extent of their fight against fake accounts and spam.
This last assertion is likely to strengthen the line of defense of Elon Musk, who claims to have given up acquiring Twitter because the company lied to him about the proportion of these fake accounts and spam on the social network. The entrepreneur and his lawyers handed Peiter Zaitko a summons on Saturday demanding all the documents and communications in his possession relating to “the impact and effects of fake accounts and spam on Twitter activity“, according to the document on file that AFP was able to consult.
The period considered is from January 1, 2019 to the date of receipt of the summons. The boss of Tesla also seeks the testimony of Peiter Zaitko, whom he summons for a deposition on September 9 at premises near his home in New Jersey.
Contacted by AFP, Peiter Zatko’s lawyer did not respond immediately. Elon Musk also asks the former security manager to produce any document related to the measurement of the number of monetizable daily active users (mDAU), a key indicator of the group’s performance.
In addition, the billionaire wants to obtain the written traces of presentations that Peiter Zaitko would have made to management concerning the risks of cyberattacks and flaws in Twitter’s computer system.
He also said he was interested in all documents and communications “relating to Twitter’s attempts to hide its security vulnerabilities from investors, regulators and the public“, as well as any trace of”illegal activity“within society.