Elon Musk Denied Attempt To Delay Twitter Trial

Elon Musk has been handed a mixed ruling in the lead up to his courtroom showdown with Twitter on 17 October.

Last week it emerged that Musk and his legal team sought to include the damaging claims by Twitter whistleblower Peiter Zatko in his counter lawsuit against Twitter.

At the same time Musk and his team proposed a new schedule with the trial taking place sometime in November (instead of 17 October), depending on the court’s availability.

Mixed ruling

On Wednesday Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick of Delaware’s Court of Chancery issued a mixed ruling for Musk, Reuters reported.

The Delaware judge granted Musk’s request to add whistleblower claims to his Twitter countersuit, but denied the billionaire’s request to delay the trial over Musk’s bid to walk away from his $44 billion deal for the company, according to a court order.

“I am convinced that even four weeks’ delay would risk further harm to Twitter,” wrote Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick.

This ruling means the courtroom showdown will still go ahead on 17 October.

Whistleblower allegations

The allegations by Twitter’s former securtiy head, Peiter Zatko, could not have come at a worse time for Twitter.

Indeed, Musk’s team were quick to subpoena Zatko, who was fired from the platform in January, alongside Rinki Sethi, the chief information security officer.

Zatkoalleged that nearly half of Twitter’s employees have access to some of the platform’s main critical controls. Zatko said this was like being on an aeroplane, where nearly every passenger and flight attendant has access to the cockpit and flight controls.

Zatko also alleged some of the company’s senior-most executives have been trying to cover up Twitter’s serious vulnerabilities, and he claims that one or more current employees may be working for a foreign intelligence service.

Zatko alleged that the Indian government forced the social media platform to put a government agent on the payroll.

He alleged the government agent would have had access to sensitive user data due to Twitter’s weak security infrastructure

Twitter has pushed back on the allegations in the disclosure and said Zatko was fired in January for “ineffective leadership and poor performance.”

Zatko maintains he was fired in retaliation for concerns he was raising regarding security vulnerabilities.

Security veteran

Peiter Zatko is a security veteran and is known by the handle “Mudge”.

He is a well-known hacker who has had a long security career since the 1990s working for DARPA, Google and Stripe.

Now Peiter Zatko has turned into a Twitter whistleblower, and exclusively made a number of serious claims against his former employer on Tuesday to CNN and the Washington Post.

Zatko alleged that Twitter has major security problems that pose a threat to its own users’ personal information, to company shareholders, to national security, and to democracy.

Zatko’s disclosures are so serious that they were sent last month to Congress and federal agencies.

Zatko had filed his complaint with the Securities and Exchange Commission in July.

Zatko is testify in a Senate hearing on 13 September, the same day that Twitter shareholders are set to vote on whether to approve Elon Musk’s takeover deal.