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Saturday, April 18, 2026

Musk cites whistleblower as new reason to exit Twitter deal - North Bay Business Journal

Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Twitter lobbed more accusations at each other Tuesday in the latest round of legal filings over Musk’s efforts to rescind his offer to buy the social media platform.

Musk filed more paperwork in his bid to terminate the deal, this time based on information in a whistleblower complaint filed by Twitter’s former head of security.

Twitter fired back by saying Musk's attempt to back out is “invalid and wrongful.”

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Musk said his legal team notified Twitter of “additional bases” for ending the deal on top of the ones given in the original termination notice issued in July.

Twitter has sued Musk, asking the Delaware Chancery Court to force him to go through with the $44 billion deal. A high-stakes trial is set to start the week of Oct. 17.

In a letter to Twitter Inc., which was included in the filing, Musk's advisors cited the whistleblower report by former executive Peiter Zatko — also known by his hacker handle “Mudge."

Zatko, who served as Twitter’s head of security until he was fired early this year, alleged in his complaint to U.S. officials that the company misled regulators about its poor cybersecurity defenses and its negligence in attempting to root out fake accounts that spread disinformation.

The Musk letter, addressed to Twitter's Chief Legal Officer Vijaya Gadde, said Zatko's allegations provide extra reasons to end the deal if the July termination notice “is determined to be invalid for...



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