Elon Musk Subpoenas Twitter Whistleblower to Learn More About Bots

Elon Musk’s lawyers have subpoenaed Peiter “Mudge” Zatko—who recently blew the whistle on Twitter’s security posture—in a bid to learn more about Twitter’s perceived botting problem.

In case anyone could forget: Musk has repeatedly cited the prevalence of bots on Twitter‘s platform as the reason why he doesn’t want to move forward with his $44 billion acquisition of the social media company despite Twitter’s assurances that bots aren’t really a problem.

The Verge reports(Opens in a new window) that Zatko was subpoenaed(Opens in a new window) today; he’s supposed to be deposed on Sept. 9. (Which is four days before he’s set to testify(Opens in a new window) before the Senate… again(Opens in a new window).) Musk’s lawyers seem particularly keen to learn more about Twitter’s “monetizable daily active users” (mDAU) metric.

It might seem odd for Musk’s lawyers to be seeking answers to those questions from Zatko, who Jack Dorsey hired in 2020 after Twitter fell victim to several high-profile hacks, when the mDAU is merely supposed to measure how many Twitter users might have seen ads on the platform.

But concerns about the mDAU metric were actually the first thing Zatko discussed in his whistleblower report. (Many have considered the allegations in that report to support Musk’s argument that Twitter has a bot problem, but as Techdirt notes(Opens in a new window), that might not be the case.)

The New York Times also reports(Opens in a new window) that lawyers for Musk and Twitter have issued over 100 subpoenas to “big-name banks (Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley), high-profile investors (Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia), well-known advisers, prominent companies that employ Twitter’s board members (Salesforce, Mastercard) and members of Mr. Musk’s entourage.”

So it makes sense for Musk’s lawyers to subpoena Zatko. They’re subpoenaing pretty much anyone who’s ever had anything to do with Twitter, per the Times report, and Zatko’s complaints about the mDAU metric all but guaranteed he’d be brought into the Musk-Twitter legal battle.