Twitter reaches $7 million settlement with whistleblower

Twitter has reached a $7 million settlement with its former security chief, Peter Zatkoin June, after he was fired from the company and raised concerns about its security practices.

Lawyers for Elon Musk, who is trying to undo a $44 billion deal to buy Twitter, revealed the settlement during a court hearing on Tuesday. during the hearing, Mr. Musk’s lawyers He successfully argued that Mr. Zatko’s accusations that Twitter misrepresented its security practices are included in the case regarding the deal.

“They pay the guy $7 million and make sure he’s quiet,” Alex Spiro, Mr Musk’s attorney, said during the hearing.

Wednesday judge Rule That Mr. Musk could discuss the security issues Mr. Zatko raised during the October trial regarding the deal in Delaware Chancery Court. The trial will determine whether Mr Musk should go ahead with his bid to buy the social media company.

A Twitter spokeswoman and a lawyer for Mr. Zatko declined to comment. Settlement details were earlier mentioned By The Wall Street Journal.

Mr. Zatko told regulators in a whistleblower report in July that Twitter misled them and the public about its security by misrepresenting how it fights spam and hackers. It allegedly violated Twitter’s 2011 agreement with the Federal Trade Commission, which prevented the company from misleading users about security and privacy measures.

Mr. Zatko also suggested that Twitter lied to Mr. Musk about how it measured the number of non-original accounts on its platform. The complaint aligns with Mr. Musk’s assertion that Twitter was not being honest about the number of bot and spam accounts on its service, which the billionaire cited as a reason to back out of the acquisition.