San Francisco, Aug 30 : Tesla CEO Elon Musk has stated that the testimonies of Twitter whistleblower Peiter “Mudge” Zatko justifies his termination of the $44 billion deal to purchase the micro-blogging site.In a fresh termination letter that was filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Musk’s legal team claimed Zatko’s claims, if are true, “demonstrate that Twitter has violated the following provisions of the Merger Agreement, thereby giving the Musk Parties the right to end the Merger Agreement pursuant to its clauses”.
Musk must demonstrate to the court that Twitter has violated a specific provision of the merger agreement or else he will be forced to pay an estimated $1 billion fine to cancel the deal.
“Twitter’s explicit misrepresentations or mistakes in the Merger Agreement and Twitter’s 2021 10-K concerning these serious allegations also result in fraud in the inducement, granting the Musk Parties the right to be recisive,” read the new termination letter filed with the US SEC late on Monday.
Musk initially sent out the letter of termination in July, and made allegations that Twitter was misleading the SEC in its disclosures regarding regulatory matters.
The new letter contains the same charges, but adds Zatko’s complaints as additional evidence.
The Twitter whistleblower Zatko will be appearing before a judge in a legal dispute between Musk and the Agrawal-led micro-blogging site.
Zatko has claimed that Twitter has misled regulators about its security policies and the actual amount of bot accounts.
Zatko was served with a subpoena by Musk’s legal team for deposition on September 9 in the ongoing legal battle between Twitter and Musk.
The court is also expected to examine documents related to the ending of Zatko’s tenure at Twitter and his continued control of Twitter shares.
Zatko is also scheduled to testify before US Congress on Wednesday, September 13, on allegations he made against the micro-blogging site run by Agrawal.
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