With the Twitter trial date rapidly approaching, Elon Musk’s legal team sent a subpoena to former Twitter head of security Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, who filed a whistleblower complaint against the company that was made public last week. In the complaint, Zatko alleges that he witnessed “egregious deficiencies, negligence, willful ignorance, and threats to national security and democracy” within Twitter, which he says tried to hide its messy inner workings from regulators and investors.
Zatko, a well-respected security researcher, joined the company in 2020 after hackers gained access to a cluster of high-profile Twitter accounts — Joe Biden and Elon Musk among them — to promote a cryptocurrency scam. He was fired in January by Parag Agrawal, who replaced Jack Dorsey as the company’s chief executive.
Musk’s team is seeking a deposition and a broad swath of documents from Zatko, hoping to bolster its case before the October 17 trial in Delaware’s Chancery Court. Zatko also received a subpoena from Congress in light of the whistleblower complaint and will appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee next month.
In the filing, Musk’s le …