Shocking Disclosure! Twitter Whistleblower Was Paid $7 Million for Silence, Elon Musk Lawyer Says
Twitter Inc. paid a whistle-blower who raised questions about operational problems within the social media platform $7 million to secure his silence, according to a lawyer for Elon Musk.
The payment was mentioned in passing at a Sept. 6 hearing in the lawsuit between Twitter and Musk over his attempts to cancel a $44 billion purchase of the company. “They're paying the guy $7 million and making sure he's quiet,” Musk attorney Alex Spiro said at the hearing. People familiar with the matter confirmed the reference was to a payment to whistle-blower Peiter Zatko.
Twitter representatives Thursday declined to comment about the payment to Zatko, the company's former head of security. The Wall Street Journal reported the payment Thursday. The newspaper, citing unidentified people familiar with the matter, said the payment was part of a settlement related to Zatko's lost compensation after leaving Twitter. The deal didn't let Zatko speak publicly, but would allow him to act as a government whistle-blower about his time at the social medial company, the Journal reported, citing the people familiar.
Musk walked away from his acquisition of Twitter after claiming the platform misled him and investors about the number of spam and bot accounts among its more than 230 million users. Twitter counters that Musk's bot concerns are a pretext to get out of a deal in which the world's richest person allegedly developed buyer's remorse.
Both sides are gearing up for an October trial of Twitter's lawsuit to force Musk to consummate the deal. Delaware Chancery Judge Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick on Wednesday approved Musk's bid to add Zatko's allegations to his counterclaims. But she denied his bid to delay the trial.
The billionaire
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