Elon Musk and Twitter lobbed shots at one another in the most recent legal filings regarding the multi-billionaire Tesla CEO's failed attempt to purchase Twitter, a social media company.
Elon Musk and Twitter lobbed attacks on each other on Tuesday, in the latest legal filings regarding Musk, a billionaire Tesla CEO's attempts to cancel his proposal to buy the social media company.
Musk submitted a new form of paperwork to end his contract to purchase Twitter the company, this time because of information in an anonymous whistleblower complaint filed by the former head of security at Twitter. Twitter came back with Musk's attempt to pull away from the agreement was "invalid and wrongful."
Amid the SEC report, Musk said his legal team had notified Twitter that they had "additional bases" for ending the contract in addition to the reasons provided in the initial termination notice, which was issued in July.
In a letter addressed to Twitter Inc., which was included in the file, Musk's advisers cited the whistleblower report of the former chief executive Peter Zatko, also known as his hacker handle "Mudge."
Zatko, who was the head of security at Twitter until his dismissal in the spring of this year, claimed in the complaint he filed in his complaint to U.S. officials that the company misled regulators regarding its inadequate cybersecurity protections and its failure to identify fake accounts that propagated false information.
The letter, which was addressed to Twitter's chief legal officer Vijaya Gadde, said Zatko's allegations are a reason to end the contract if the termination notice from July "is determined to be invalid for any reason."
Billionaire Musk has been making claims for months his company signed a deal to purchase undercounted its false as well as a spam account, meaning that he won't be required to sign this $44 billion acquisition. Musk's decision to pull out of the deal will set the stage for a high-stakes legal fight in October.
In an additional SEC file, Twitter responded to what it termed Musk's latest "purported termination," saying it's "based solely on statements made by a third party that, as Twitter has previously stated, are riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies and lack important context."