A Delaware choose will enable Elon Musk to include new info from Twitter whistleblower Peiter Zatko into his countersuit against the company. Zatko, a well-respected safety skilled identified by the nickname “Mudge,” beforehand served as Twitter’s head of safety and raised considerations in regards to the firm’s security and privacy practices in a current whistleblower grievance.
Delaware’s Chancery Court docket Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick issued a decision Wednesday that may enable Musk to amend his counterclaim with particulars that emerged in Zatko’s whistleblower grievance filed with the SEC in July. McCormick added that Musk would solely be allowed “incremental discovery related to the brand new allegations” and that would embody “focused doc discovery and minimal extra specialists and reality witnesses.”
Twitter argued towards permitting Musk to amend his claims with Zatko’s allegations, however the choose famous that such amendments are sometimes allowed. Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal denied the accuracy of Zatko’s claims in an inside memo final month, arguing that the whistleblower grievance pushes “a false narrative that’s riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies, and offered with out vital context.”
Whereas Musk is getting his method on that one, McCormick rejected the simultaneous request from his authorized crew to delay the trial, which is scheduled to start out on October 17. Musk’s crew needed to push the trial a month out, into mid-November.
“In arguing that trial must be delayed by a minimum of 4 weeks, Defendants contend that no exterior deadline creates any urgency… However the reverse is true,” McCormick wrote. “I beforehand rejected Defendants’ arguments in response to Twitter’s movement to expedite, making clear that the longer the delay till trial, the better the danger of irreparable hurt to Twitter.”
