Elon Musk Gets "Wind" Against Twitter, Zatko Case Can Win Him

Peiter "Mudge" Zatko, bisa membuat Elon Musk menang atas Twitter di Pengadilan. (foto: twitter @mudge)

JAKARTA - Elon Musk has sent his third letter to Twitter trying to halt the company's $44 billion acquisition. Musk's legal team cited Twitter's multi-million-dollar severance pay to former security chief and whistleblower Peiter Zatko as a violation of the merger agreement and a reason for ending the deal.

The letter, dated September 9, was sent to Twitter's chief legal officer Vijaya Gadde, and was included in a Twitter filing made with the SEC on Friday.

Last month, Zatko made headlines when he accused Twitter of defrauding investors about the number of bots on the service, failing to delete user data, and having poor security practices. Musk made the accusations, citing him in his second termination letter and summoning Zatko to testify in the lawsuit. The Zatko trial will take place next Friday before the US Congress.

Elon Musk sent his first termination letter in July, saying that Twitter misled him about the number of bots on its platform, and that the company would not give him access to the information he needed to make his own decisions. This is despite the fact that it is given access to the "firehose" API that contains each tweet.

On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Twitter had agreed to pay Zatko about $7 million before he left the company. This relates to the compensation he lost after he and the company negotiated the payment for months.

Musk's lawyers cited it as another reason why his deal to buy the social media company shouldn't be done. The purchase agreement prohibits Twitter from providing unusual severance or termination payments.

According to the Journal, the settlement isn't all that weird, considering that Zatko was an executive leaving the company, but it looks like Musk disagrees. The letter also said Musk did not know about the separation agreement until Twitter took it to court.

Whether Musk was actually allowed to terminate the deal is a matter of court in Delaware after Twitter sued Musk in July for trying to leave the deal.

Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick has decided that Musk will be allowed to use Zatko's allegations to support his case, and that there will be "limited" discovery of documents related to the whistleblower's report. In August, Musk filed a second termination notice, citing the original report.

The trial will begin on October 17. Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.