Elon Musk's new 'reason' to exit Twitter deal

Revelations by Twitter whistleblower 'Mudge' has taken center stage in Tesla CEO Elon Musk's effort to back out of an agreement to buy the social media platform.

'Mudge' is the hacker handle of Peiter Zatko, who was fired as Twitter's head of security earlier this year.

Zatko complained to US regulators last week that Twitter "falsely claimed" it had a solid security plan.


Musk's lawyers on Tuesday sent a fresh letter to Twitter to include the whistleblower complaint as another reason to scrap the $44 billion deal.

Then, later in the day, they filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission they they wanted to amend Musk's complaint against Twitter to include this reason.

They also sought to delay the trial till mid-November. The high-stakes trial is set to start the week of October 17

For Musk, this opens a new battle front with Twitter. His earlier complaint in July had accused the social media platform of misleading him over the number of fake accounts.

Now, he says it's no longer about just bogus accounts; it's now bogus accounts plus data insecurity.

An expert, Brian Quinn, a law professor at Boston College, quoted by AP said this issue could make it more difficult for Twitter.

While bot issue was something Twitter could win on, cybersecurity problems may not be such an easy victory, Quinn said.