Elon Musk and Twitter fired salvos Tuesday in the latest round of legal filings over the billionaire Tesla CEO’s efforts to rescind your offer to buy the social media platform.
Musk filed further filings to rescind his deal to buy Twitter, this time based on information from a complaint of the complainant presented by Twitter’s former head of security. Twitter responded by calling its attempt to withdraw from the deal “invalid and unlawful.”
In Musk’s initial notice of termination in July, the billionaire claimed that Twitter misled his team about the number of fake accounts and bots on the platform. In Tuesday’s new SEC filing, Musk said his legal team notified Twitter of “additional grounds” to end the deal, in addition to those listed in July.
In a letter to Twitter chief legal officer Vijaya Gadde that was included in the filing, Musk’s advisers cited the complainant’s report by former security executive Peiter Zatko, also known by his hacker handle, Mudge.
Zatko, who served as Twitter’s security chief until he was fired earlier this year, alleged in his complaint to US officials that the company misled regulators about its weak defenses of cyber security and their negligence in trying to root. fake accounts who spread misinformation. The former security chief alleged that Twitter executives lacked the ability or interest in finding out the true number of fake accounts on the platform.
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Those allegations provide additional grounds to end the deal if the July termination notice “is determined to be invalid for any reason,” Musk’s team wrote.
Zatko received a summons Saturday from Musk’s team, according to Zatko’s attorney and court records. That testimony could help bolster Musk’s case for backing out of a $44 billion deal to buy the social media company, as bots and spam accounts also feature prominently. Musk’s complaints on Twitter. The billionaire has spent months arguing that the company he agreed to acquire didn’t have his fake and spam accounts, meaning he doesn’t have to make the purchase.
Musk’s decision back off of the transaction sets the stage for a high-stakes legal battle in October.
In a separate SEC filing, Twitter responded to what it called Musk’s latest “purported termination,” saying it is “based solely on statements made by a third party that, as Twitter has previously stated, are full of inconsistencies and inaccuracies and lack important context.”
The company pledged to carry out the sale at the price agreed with Musk.
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