Twitter goes to court with Musk: Twitter directly spends $7 million to silence the whistleblower

According to sources familiar with the matter, Twitter agreed to pay about $7 million to a whistleblower in June this year, and the accusation made by the whistleblower will be testimony in a lawsuit between Tesla CEO Elon Musk (Elon Musk) and the company.

The whistleblower, Peiter Zatko, a former head of security at Twitter, was fired by the company in January. Last month, Zatko accused the social media company of falsely claiming to have reliable security plans and making misleading statements about defending against hackers and spam accounts.

Zatko will attend a hearing of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 13 to discuss the allegations.

According to sources, Zatko filed the allegations in July, and the settlement agreement between Twitter and him was completed a few days before the latter filed the charges. Under the settlement agreement, Zatko agreed to a confidentiality agreement that forbids him from talking publicly about his experience at Twitter or vilifying the company.

Sources also revealed that the confidential settlement reached in June was related to the compensation lost by Zatko. Months earlier, the two sides mediated tens of millions of dollars in potential compensation.

Twitter has yet to respond to requests for comment.

Mr Musk has engaged in a head-on legal battle with Twitter over his proposal to buy the company for $44 billion after he changed course and abandoned the deal, saying the social media company misled him about the number of robots and fake accounts on its website.