Elon Musk has issued a subpoena to Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, the former Twitter security chief turned whistleblower.

Zatko will be deposed in the lawsuit between Twitter and Elon Musk on September 9, where it is expected he will be questioned over his claims that the company is not making efforts to stop the infiltration of automated bot and spam accounts.

Elon Musk claims the social media platform’s misrepresentation of its user base numbers constitutes fraud, breach of contract and violation of the Texas Securities Act.

Musk’s filing alleges that “the “key metrics” Twitter uses to evaluate the number of users on its platform” were misrepresented.

“They contain numerous, material misrepresentations or omissions that distort Twitter’s value and caused the Musk Parties to agree to acquire the company at an inflated price,” the filing claims.

Zatko claims that leadership is incentivised to inflate user numbers, and therefore has a financial reason for underreporting the bot count, and for not making adequate efforts to crack down on the proliferation of automated “bot” and spam accounts.

“Twitter executives have little or no personal incentive to accurately ‘detect’ or measure the prevalence of spam bots,” Zatko claims.

“Senior management had no appetite to properly measure the prevalence of bot accounts… they were concerned that if accurate measurements ever became public, it would harm the image and valuation of the company.”

Musk’s subpoena requests documents and communications “reflecting, referring to, or relating to the impact or effect of false or spam accounts on Twitter’s business and operations.”

It also asks for documents and communications supporting, refuting, or otherwise relating to Twitter’s representation that it performed “an internal review of a sample of accounts and estimate that the average of false or spam accounts during the fourth quarter of 2021 represented fewer than 5 per cent of our mDAU”.

Musk is also seeking:

Documents and Communications concerning (a) Twitter’s mDAU metric, including calculation of that metric; (ii) spam accounts on Twitter, including calculation of the number of spam accounts; (iii) Twitter’s disclosure of mDAU metric; and (iv) Twitter’s disclosure of the number of spam accounts on the website.

Zatko (above) was fired from his senior executive role at Twitter in January 2022 for “ineffective leadership and poor performance,” according to a company spokesperson.

“What we’ve seen so far is a false narrative about Twitter and our privacy and data security practices that is riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies and lacks important context.

“Mr. Zatko’s allegations and opportunistic timing appear designed to capture attention and inflict harm on Twitter, its customers and its shareholders.”

Zatko claims he was fired after bringing up numerous security issues to his bosses.