In a minor win for Tesla CEO Elon Musk, a US court has allowed his legal team to file a $7.75 million severance lawsuit against Peiter ‘Mudge’ Zatko.
In a minor win for Tesla CEO Elon Musk, a US court has allowed his legal team to show that a $7.75 million severance payment to Peiter ‘Mudge’ Zatko, Twitter’s former security chief, allows him to exit a $44 billion takeover deal. .
Judge Kathleen McCormick of the Delaware Court of Chancery in the US, where the legal battle is set to begin on October 17, ruled in the latest filing that Musk can amend his counterclaims to include the payment to Zatka.
The ruling means Musk can use the Zatka payment to make his case for closing the deal.
Twitter did not oppose the proposal, Barron’s reports.
Twitter is also investigating whether there is a connection between its former security chief and Musk.
The court also agreed to Twitter’s request for details on whether Musk or his associates knew about Zatka’s claims before he made them public.
The judge ordered Musk’s legal team to provide certain documents requested by Twitter regarding any of their communications with Zatko.
Twitter is facing increased scrutiny from governments after Zaťko alleged the company had sloppy security practices, misled federal regulators about its security and failed to estimate the number of bots on its platform.
Musk said the Twitter whistleblower’s testimony justified his termination of a deal to buy the microblogging platform for $44 billion.