Twitter is risking billions in fines due to Musk, company lawyer warns

Twitter employees have been facing major challenges in a very short period. Elon Musk has brought about multiple changes in the management and even fired around 50 per cent of employees. Now, more executives are leaving his side. Musk also spelled doom in his first address to Twitter employees. A new report now suggests that Twitter risks being slapped with billions in fines. The company is already under heavy debt after Musk’s takeover deal of $44 billion. 

A company lawyer at Twitter has made some strong statements against Elon Musk, according to a report by The Verge. The lawyer also asks employees to seek whistleblower protection if they feel uncomfortable about anything they are asked to do. This comes to light after some of the top executives looking after cybersecurity have decided to leave the organisation. 

To move fast, Twitter is reportedly bypassing some critical steps that ensure cybersecurity. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) of US has entered an agreement with Twitter regarding user info for targeted ads. According to the lawyer, if Musk’s Twitter breaches the FTC agreement, the government can impose fines in billions of dollars. Twitter recently rolled out a revamped Twitter Blue subscription in record time. 

He further called out Elon Musk’s intention with the current changes on the platform. In a conversation on the company’s Slack, he claimed that Musk is primarily concerned with just monetizing Twitter users and doesn’t care about human rights activists, dissidents, and even users in the regions that cannot be monetized. 

The Verge report quoted him saying, “Elon has shown that his only priority with Twitter users is how to monetize them. I do not believe he cares about human rights activists. the dissidents, our users in un-monetizable regions, and all the other users who have made Twitter the global town square you have all spent so long building, and we all love.”

So far, Twitter’s chief privacy officer Damien Kieran, chief information security officer Lea Kissner, and chief compliance officer Marianne Fogarty have resigned from the company. Even Yoel Roth, the former Head of Trust & Safety and someone favoured by Elon Musk has put down his papers.