https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/08/technology/twitter-whistleblower-settlement.html

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Technology|Twitter reached $7 million settlement with whistle-blower.
  
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/08/technology/
twitter-whistleblower-settlement.html

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Twitter reached $7 million settlement with whistle-blower.

Lawyers for Elon Musk mentioned a $7 million payment to Peiter Zatko,
Twitter's former top security executive, in a court hearing this
week.

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Peiter Zatko, who is also known as Mudge, in Washington, D.C., last
month.
Peiter Zatko, who is also known as Mudge, in Washington, D.C., last
month.Credit...Matt McClain/The Washington Post via Getty Images

By Kate Conger

  * Sept. 8, 2022Updated 5:19 p.m. ET

Twitter reached a $7 million settlement with its former top security
executive, Peiter Zatko, in June, after he was fired from the company
and had raised concerns about its security practices.

Lawyers for Elon Musk, who is trying to back out of a $44 billion
deal to buy Twitter, disclosed the settlement during a court hearing
on Tuesday. During the hearing, Mr. Musk's lawyers successfully
argued that Mr. Zatko's accusations that Twitter had misrepresented
its security practices be included in the case over the deal.

"They're paying the guy $7 million and making sure he's quiet," Alex
Spiro, an attorney for Mr. Musk, said during the hearing.

On Wednesday, a judge ruled that Mr. Musk could discuss the security
problems raised by Mr. Zatko during an October trial over the deal in
Delaware Chancery Court. The trial will determine whether Mr. Musk
must proceed with his bid to buy the social media company.

A spokeswoman for Twitter and a lawyer for Mr. Zatko declined to
comment. Details of the settlement were earlier reported by The Wall
Street Journal.

Mr. Zatko told regulators in a whistle-blower report in July that
Twitter misled them and the public about its security by
misrepresenting how it fights spam and hackers. That violated a 2011
agreement that Twitter had struck with the Federal Trade Commission,
which had barred the company from misleading users about its security
and privacy measures, he contended.

Mr. Zatko also suggested that Twitter had lied to Mr. Musk about how
it measures the number of inauthentic accounts on its platform. The
complaint dovetailed with Mr. Musk's assertions that Twitter has not
been truthful about the number of bots and spam accounts on its
service, which the billionaire has cited as a reason to back out of
the acquisition.

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