SAN FRANCISCO: Twitter Inc chief executive officer Parag Agrawal defended the company on Tuesday in an email to employees after a former executive claimed the social network ignored major security vulnerabilities and doesn’t know how many spam bots it has on the platform.
Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, the former top security executive at Twitter, filed the whistle-blower complaint with Congress and regulatory agencies. Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk’s lawyers are already seeking more information in an effort to help Musk get out of a $44 billion Twitter acquisition deal he signed in April.
Twitter disputed the claims on Tuesday, adding that Zatko was fired in January for poor performance. Agrawal warned employees of coming distractions from media attention, and said he will address them at a staff meeting Wednesday. Zatko couldn’t be reached for comment.
“Mudge stands by everything in his disclosure, and his career of ethical and effective leadership speaks for itself,” John Tye, chief disclosure officer at Whistleblower Aid, said in an emailed statement. “The focus should be on the facts laid out in the disclosure, not ad hominem attacks against the whistleblower.”
Here’s Agrawal’s full email to employees, which was reviewed by Bloomberg:
Team,
