Revelations from former Twitter security chief Peiter Zatko are giving Elon Musk grounds to walk away from his $44 billion deal to buy the company.
On Monday, the businessman’s lawyers presented a new one from the United States citing Zatko’s testimony as evidence that Twitter fell into inconsistencies with the SEC to establish a purchase agreement.
Musk and his defense mentioned that the company’s version that they did not mislead the agency is false, since Zatko himself said in his complaint that Twitter deliberately and repeatedly misled the SEC and regulators regarding security within the company. social network.
“The allegations, if true, demonstrate that Twitter has breached provisions of the Merger Agreement, giving the Musk parties the right to terminate it in accordance with its terms,” the letter to the SEC read.
This fact is part of a new strategy in Musk’s defense to retract the purchase, since he needs to prove to a judge that Twitter violated the agreement in some way. If he fails, he will have to pay a $1 billion fine.
In addition, Musk’s team also filed a subpoena for Zatko to appear regarding the complaints he filed a few days ago, especially those regarding the deception that the company made to the SEC as well as the number of fake or spam accounts, which is considered a “key metric”.
Zatko’s summons is scheduled for September 9, and among other items to be reviewed by the court are those related to possible illegal activity by Twitter or documents about any foreign intelligence agents employed by the company.
For Musk, Zatko’s statements may form an important part of his strategy to prevent the acquisition of the social network, as the former security chief has alleged that the company deliberately minimized the activity of bots within the platform.
While many cybersecurity insiders have endorsed Zatko’s statements, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal has defended the company’s internal processes, saying the former executive’s complaints are part of a “false narrative.”
On the other hand, they pointed out that Musk’s defense will use Zatki’s complaint as a kind of “wild card” in the dispute, since before these statements were made public, the businessman’s arguments were not very strong.
It should be remembered that at the beginning of July Musk had submitted a letter to withdraw from the agreement in which he had made similar accusations, but it had not had much impact, because he did not have any element to support him and now he seems to have found evidence thanks to Zatko’s statements.
