(CNN) – Twitter Inc said in a court statement Thursday that federal authorities are investigating Tesla CEO Elon Musk in connection with his $ 44 billion acquisition of Twitter.
It is unclear who might be conducting the investigation and Twitter did not identify Musk’s conduct for the investigation, but the company’s lawsuit accused Musk’s legal team of failing to issue US Securities and Exchange Commission approval and filing a presentation to the Federal Trade Commission.
In response, Alex Spiro, Musk’s attorney, said the case was intended to distract attention from Twitter’s legal woes, which arose after former Twitter security chief Peter Zatko (Mudge) had accused the company of ignoring the existence of vulnerabilities long ago.
“Twitter executives are under investigation in an attempt to find the author,” Spiro said in a statement on CNN.
The Federal Trade Commission, which is responsible for enforcing the terms of the 2011 agreement with Twitter to address those vulnerabilities that Zatko claims the company has breached, did not disclose a public investigation, but the commission’s chair, Lena Khan, told Congress in public testimony that if Twitter executives have been shown to be responsible for legal violations, they can be held accountable.
