Twitter whistleblower will depose in Musk-Twitter legal battle

San Francisco, Aug 29

So-called Twitter whistleblower Peiter "Mudge" Zatko will appear before the judge in a legal battle between Elon Musk and Parag Agrawal-led micro-blogging platform, the media reported on Monday. Former Twitter security chief Zatko has alleged that Twitter misled regulators about its security practices and actual number of bot accounts.

Zatko has now received a subpoena from Musk's legal team to appear for a deposition on September 9 in the ongoing lawsuit between Twitter and Musk, reports The Verge.

The court will also review materials related to the end of Zatko's employment at Twitter and his ongoing ownership of Twitter shares.

Zatko is also set to testify at US Congress on September 13 about allegation he leveled against the Agrawal-led micro-blogging platform.

Zatko will testify before the Senate about his allegations of security failures at the social network, the Senate Judiciary Committee announced.

"Zatko's allegations of widespread security failures and foreign state actor interference at Twitter raise serious concerns. If these claims are accurate, they may show dangerous data privacy and security risks for Twitter users around the world," said Senators Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill) and Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) from the Senate Judiciary Committee in a statement.

Zatko has met privately with Judiciary Committee staff, and has had three meetings on Capitol Hill, according to the report.

Twitter is also facing privacy probes in the European Union (EU) after the whistleblower complaint.

--IANS