Elon Musk's legal battle with Twitter just got a lot more complicated

Elon Musk is currently engaged in a legal battle with Twitter over backing out of his deal to purchase the company for $44 billion, citing an unknown number of spam/bot accounts.

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Peiter Zatko.

SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk is currently engaged in a legal battle with the world's second-largest social media platform Twitter over the Tesla founder backing out of his deal to purchase the platform for $44 billion. Musk backed out of the deal, citing Twitter's failure to provide him and what his legal team considered to be the correct information regarding the number of bot/spam accounts on the platform.

Last month a new spanner was thrown into the mix with the surfacing of Twitter's former head of security Peiter Zatko's whistleblower complaint that claimed Twitter was failing at upholding appropriate cyber security standards and that the company was willingly committing fraud. A hearing was recently held with both team's attendance to determine if the whistleblower complaint from Zatko was included in the case. According to The Wall Street Journal, Zatko's complaint will be included and will be an instrumental part of Musk's legal battle against Twitter.

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Elon Musk.

As the legal battle continues, more details regarding Zatko's involvement have emerged, with the WSJ reporting that Zatko was paid a $7 million settlement from Twitter in June, which was reportedly compensation for his firing in January. Additionally, Zatko agreed to a nondisclosure agreement (NDA) that prevented him from speaking publicly about his time at Twitter or releasing any information that could be damaging. As reported by Insider, an NDA has one exception, a whistleblower complaint.

Musk's legal team stated during the hearing that Musk had "nothing to do" with Zatko's whistleblower complaint, and when asked by the judge why his complaint wasn't found during the due diligence process prior to the acquisition engagement, Elon Musk's legal team said Twitter would have hidden it as its damaging. In response to these claims, the judge referenced Musk's decision to waive his right of due diligence, and said, "We'll never know, right. Because the diligence didn't happen."

A trial date is targeting October, and Zatko is expected to testify before the US Senate next week over the claims in the whistleblower complaint.

• Read more: Judge goes after Elon Musk during Twitter trial, 'You had one job'

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