Judge Lets Musk Add Whistleblower Claims to Twitter Suit, Rejects Delay
The Delaware judge presiding over the dispute between Elon Musk and Twitter issued a final ruling on two major items this week ahead of the Oct. 17 trial.
First, Chancellor Kathaleen St. J. McCormick granted Musk’s lawyers' request to amend their case to include allegations made by former Twitter security chief Pieter Zatko, also known as Mudge. He has become known as the Twitter whistleblower after filing complaints about what he says are security vulnerabilities he observed in his 14-month tenure at the company.
Requests to amend are “typically granted,” according to McCormick’s statement(Opens in a new window). Twitter's arguments against amendment were not sufficient to rule otherwise. “I am reticent to say more concerning the merits of the counterclaims before they have been fully litigated,” she adds, referring to the exploration of the whistleblower’s allegations that will play out in trial.
Second, McCormick denied a request from Musk's team to delay the trial four weeks from Oct. 17 to mid-November. “The longer the delay until trial, the greater the risk of irreparable harm to Twitter,” she writes, citing recent increased employee attrition. Twitter’s stock has also suffered from Musk’s actions, dropping 37% from a high of $51.70 when Twitter accepted Musk's offer in April, to $32.65 in July when Musk confirmed he will try to back out of it.
Unlike Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, who supplied journalists with a trove of documents, Zatko is relying largely on his reputation within the cybersecurity community as a former-hacker-turned-corporate-executive for credibility, Time Magazine notes(Opens in a new window). Inclusion in official court documents implies a certain level of validity to his
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