Peiter "Mudge" Zatko claims Twitter bosses are unable to fully gauge how many bots are on the platform — an allegation that could help Elon Musk.
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A whistleblower has claimed that Twitter has major security problems that put the personal information of its users at risk.
The Washington Post and CNN have named the whistleblower as Peiter "Mudge" Zatko, who served as the social network's head of security until January 2022.
A number of allegations have been made — including claims that the tech giant has misled government regulators and its own board members about security vulnerabilities.
Zatko went on to claim that Twitter has been failing to reliably delete data when users close their accounts.
And in allegations that could strengthen Elon Musk's case against the company, he claims Twitter bosses are unable to fully gauge how many bots are on the platform. Zatko is now set to be subpoenaed by the Tesla CEO's lawyers.
All of these claims may alarm Crypto Twitter, not least because many of them take their anonymity on this social network seriously.
Zatko claims that he repeatedly tried to flag these security issues, but Twitter has firmly disputed these allegations — and said in a statement that he was fired for "ineffective leadership and poor performance," adding:
"What we've seen so far is a false narrative about Twitter and our privacy and data security practices that is riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies and lacks important context."
Twitter went on to accuse him of "opportunistic timing" that is designed to "inflict harm" on the company — and stressed security has long been a top priority.
The social network and Musk are currently embroiled in a legal fight, with the billionaire now attempting to walk away from a $44 billion deal.
Lawyers representing Twitter claim that Musk's reason for wanting to abandon the takeover has nothing to do with spam accounts or fake users — and instead, it's all down to the recent correction in the stock market.
A high-stakes trial, which is set to be one of the biggest in Wall Street's history, is scheduled to begin at the Delaware Court of Chancery in October.
Twitter's goal from this lawsuit is simple: Forcing Elon Musk to buy the company.
While the Delaware Court of Chancery has granted similar requests in the past, it's never done so on a company of this size.
We'll now be going through a discovery process where both sides will have to hand over evidence. Musk will be hoping for concrete information surrounding how many fake users and spam accounts are actually on Twitter.
The entrepreneur has repeatedly argued that the social network underestimates bots, and claims this could have a detrimental effect on advertising revenues.
