Amid , his attorneys have now subpoenaed the company’s former security chief, Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, to appear for a deposition on September 9th. Zatko last week submitted against Twitter to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission. He accused the company of (among other things) having “egregious” security issues. Zatko suggested the problems may .
In the subpoena, which was filed on Monday and obtained by , Musk’s attorneys request materials related to how Zatko’s at Twitter and what stock, if any, he owns in the company. There are also demands for documents that might indicate any illegal activity by Twitter or foreign intelligence agents it employs. Perhaps most pertinently to Musk’s attempt to back out of his , the subpoena asks for information connected to the monetizable daily active users (mDAUs) metric Twitter uses, as well as documents Zatko has on Twitter’s alleged spam problem.
Zatko claimed in the complaint that Twitter lied to Musk about the prevalence of bots and spam accounts, as notes. Musk has of fraudulently masking the true number of bots. In his , Musk said Twitter made “false and misleading representations” about how many phony accounts are on the platform.
In July, Twitter sued Musk over his attempt to wash his hands of the deal. Musk filed a countersuit later that month. His team has also . The case will go to trial .
Meanwhile, Senate and Congressional committee leaders Zatko’s claims. The whistleblower is set to five days after he’s scheduled to be deposed in Musk’s case against Twitter. Zatko’s assertions have been disputed by Twitter and its CEO Parag Agrawal.
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