Whistleblower Peiter “Mudge” Zatko is shaking things up as Twitter prepares to face off against Elon Musk in court in October.
Zatko — an “ethical hacker” who’s worked with Google, Stripe, and the US Defense Department — is Twitter’s ex-head of cybersecurity.
His lawyers sent the report to Congress and federal agencies last month, per CNN.
What’s it say?
A lot, including:
- Twitter lied about its spam and fake accounts being less than 5%.
- Its reporting metric mDAU (monetizable daily active users) hides the number of fake accounts.
- Execs don’t have the resources to know real numbers, nor are they incentivized to find out.
- Leaders have misled Twitter’s board and the government about security vulnerabilities, including those that pose national security risks.
- Twitter has never been in compliance with FTC demands from 2010.
Twitter’s official statement…
… is that Zatko’s report is a “false narrative” designed to harm the company.
But if Zatko’s claims are found to be credible, it could not only help Musk — who claims he abandoned his $44B Twitter purchase after it failed to provide info about fake accounts — but also mean big FTC fines.
BTW: Here’s Zatko sharing stories from his time with the Dept. of Defense at hacker convention DEF CON.
