Twitter shareholders vote to approve Elon Musk's $44B acquisition
Twitter accepted Musk's offer to acquire and take it private at $54.20 per share in April
FOX Business' Connell McShane reports from Capitol Hill, where Twitter whistleblower Peiter Zatko told lawmakers concerns were raised to executives about 'foreign agents' being employed.
Twitter said on Tuesday that, based on a preliminary tally, it has a sufficient number of votes from shareholders to approve Elon Musk's $44 billion acquisition of the social media giant.
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In April, Twitter accepted the Tesla chief executive's offer to acquire and take it private at $54.20 per share.
Musk has since filed three separate termination notices in an effort to walk away from the deal after claiming the company has breached its obligations under the acquisition agreement. Musk claims that Twitter has misrepresented the total number of spam and fake accounts on its platform.
Twitter, which maintains that spam and fake accounts make up less than 5% of its users, has repeatedly called the termination notices "invalid and wrongful" and is suing the world's richest man in the Delaware Court of Chancery in an effort to get him to follow through on the deal's original price and terms. The legal showdown will kick off with a trial beginning Oct. 17.
TWITTER ‘OVER A DECADE BEHIND’ INDUSTRY STANDARDS FOR CYBERSECURITY: WHISTLEBLOWER
The shareholder vote comes after Twitter's former security chief Peiter "Mudge" Zatko testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.
Zatko filed a whistleblower complaint with Congress, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice in July accusing Twitter of "extreme, egregious deficiencies" in its cybersecurity.
"The company's cybersecurity failures make it vulnerable to exploitation, causing real harm to real people," Zatko told lawmakers. "When an influential media platform can be compromised by teenagers, thieves and spies, and the company repeatedly creates security problems on their own, this is a big deal for all of us."
Twitter whistleblower Peiter Zatko is sworn in for a Senate Judiciary hearing examining data security at risk, Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2022, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin / AP Newsroom)
In addition to Twitter's security flaws, Zatko has alleged in the complaint that Twitter executives are "not incentivized to accurately ‘detect’ or report total spam bots on the platform."
Instead, they are allegedly incentivized to boost the company's monetizable daily active user (mDAU) count with bonuses that can exceed $10 million. He also claims Twitter does not have the resources to fully understand the true number of bots on the platform.
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Twitter, which fired Zatko in January, has called the allegations a "false narrative" about its privacy and data security practices that are "riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies" and lacks important context.
The company has said that the timing of the allegations "appear designed to capture attention and inflict harm on Twitter, its customers and its shareholders." But Zatko argued Tuesday that his disclosures were not made out of spite or to harm the company.
"I continue to believe in the mission of the company and for its success," he said. "But that success can only happen if the privacy and security of Twitter's users and the public are protected."
Following the hearing, Zatko's attorneys said in a statement that he "remains ready, willing and able to be part of the legislative reform that is sorely needed."