With his third letter to Twitter, Elon Musk is attempting to back out of his $44 billion purchase of the firm. The multimillion dollar severance payout made by Twitter to former security chief and whistleblower Peiter Zatko was highlighted by Musk’s legal team as a breach of the merger agreement and a justification for terminating the acquisition. Twitter’s chief legal officer Vijaya Gadde received the letter, which was dated September 9th, and it was attached to a filing the company made with the SEC on Friday (which you can read at the bottom of this article).
Last month, Zatko gained notoriety by claiming that Twitter had engaged in bad security procedures, failed to destroy user data, and misled investors about the number of bots using the service.
Elon Musk issued his first letter of dismissal in July, claiming that Twitter had misled him on the number of bots using its platform and that the business had refused to provide him with the data he required to make his own decisions. Despite having access to the “firehose” API, which contains every tweet, he still did this.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that after months of pay negotiations, Twitter had agreed to pay Zatko nearly $7 million before he departed the firm in regard to lost compensation. It is being mentioned by Musk’s attorneys as just another reason why his agreement to buy the social media business shouldn’t go through. The contract prohibits Twitter