Elon Musk allowed to make a case regarding Twitter's payment to whistleblower Peiter Zatko

A U.S. court allowed, Tesla CEO, Elon Musk and his legal team to make a case against Twitter for a $7.75 million severance payment to Peiter 'Mudge' Zatko. Peiter was Twitter's former head of Security and the case would allow Musk to terminate the $44 billion takeover deal. The trial is set to begin on October 17.

Judge Kathleen McCormick of the Delaware Court of Chancery in the US, ruled in the latest filing that Musk can amend his counterclaims to include the payment to Zatko. The ruling means that Musk can use the Zatko payment for his argument regarding terminating the deal. 

Twitter did not oppose the motion, reports Barron's. Twitter is also seeking to determine if there is a connection between its former head of security and Musk.

The court has also agreed to a request by Twitter for details about whether Musk or his associates knew about Zatko's claims before he took them to the public. The judge ordered Musk's legal team to provide some documents as requested by Twitter regarding any communications by them with Zatko.

Twitter is facing greater scrutiny from the government after Zatko claimed that the company had negligent security practices, misled federal regulators about its safety, and failed to estimate the number of bots on its platform.

Musk has said that the testimony of Twitter whistleblower justifies his termination of the $44 billion deal to buy the micro-blogging platform.

Published on: Sunday, September 25, 2022, 08:52 PM IST