Whistleblower says Twitter employs ‘at least one’ Chinese spy

While addressing Congress on Tuesday, former security chief of Twitter, Peiter ‘Mudge’ Zatko claimed that the company failed to acknowledge foreign spies within its organization, employing at least one Chinese foreign agent.

Zatko first filed whistleblower complaints with government agencies earlier this summer. In his 84-page complaint,  Zatko also accused the tech company of “lying” to Elon Musk about the app’s spam accounts and also having poor security practices that could violate an FTC agreement.

According to Zatko when he brought up the “foreign agent” in conversation with a Twitter executive, they were dismissive, replying, “Well, since we already have one, what does it matter if we have more? Let’s keep growing the office.”

In Zatko’s testimony to Congress, he alleged that Twitter lacked “basic, fundamental tools and access control,” adding that engineers could even try to sell access to users’ accounts on the black market and Twitter could run into issues finding the culprit.

In response to his claims, a spokesperson for Twitter on Tuesday said, “today’s hearing only confirms that Mr. Zatko’s allegations are riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies.” 

Musk’s legal team has already added Zatko’s allegations to his countersuit against Twitter.