Testimony from Twitter’s former security chief to US senators on Tuesday was undoubtedly bruising for the social media company. But it is unlikely to have a significant impact on Elon Musk’s legal battle to terminate his $44bn takeover deal, according to experts.
Over the course of a two-and-a-half-hour Senate judiciary committee hearing, former Twitter executive turned whistleblower Peiter “Mudge” Zatko painted a portrait of a company with woefully inept security practices to the point that national security was threatened, and no desire to address those flaws.
Instead, Zatko argued, Twitter’s leadership chose to prioritise “profits over security”, fostering “a culture of ‘only report good and positive results up’”.