Elon Musk claims Twitter officials ordered whistleblower to destroy evidence

Tesla billionaire’s lawyers seek a sanction on Twitter’s attorneys

Elon Musk has claimed that Twitter officials ordered the company’s former executive and whistleblower Peiter “Mudge” Zatko to destroy evidence of the company’s security flaws.

The Tesla chief’s legal team accused Twitter of making Mr Zatko destroy evidence as part of a condition of the $7.8m severance package he received, a court filing made public on Monday revealed.

“Twitter negotiated a unique ‘severance package’ with Mr Zatko in June 2022 that was plainly intended to procure Mr Zatko’s silence and prevent him from coming forward with his whistleblower disclosures,” one of Mr Musk’s lawyers noted in the court filing.

“In addition to making a severance payment far greater than typical for other former executives, Twitter required Mr Zatko to agree, as a condition to payment, to return or destroy all documents in his possession containing Twitter information,” he added.

The attorney claimed this instruction to return or destroy the documents “differed from Twitter’s ordinary course severance agreements”, adding that it has deprived the defendants of critical evidence that could support Mr Zatko’s account of key meetings and conversations.

The Tesla chief’s lawyers claim the alleged destroying of evidence “relevant to this case” was illegal, based on the 2011 Federal Trade Commission Consent Order against Twitter, and have sought a sanction on the social media company’s attorneys.

Mr Zatko’s claims of security issues at Twitter have been at the centre of the Tesla titan’s legal battle to back out of his deal to buy the social media company for $44bn – a decision he reversed last week, offering to buy the platform for the originally agreed-on price.

But Twitter has said it fired Mr Zatko for his poor performance, adding that his claims created a “false narrative” about Twitter and its privacy and data security practices.

The social media giant said its former security head’s allegations are “riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies and lacks important context”.

Twitter did not immediately respond to The Independent’s request for comment.

Last week, Mr Musk offered to go through with the deal at the originally agreed price of $44bn if Twitter would agree to cease all legal proceedings against him, but the social media company did not accept the offer.

A Delaware Chancery judge has set a deadline of 5pm ET on 28 October for Mr Musk and Twitter to close the $44bn deal.