In November, three top executives responsible for overseeing security, privacy and compliance resigned from Twitter, a day before the deadline for Twitter to submit a response to an FTC demand letter. The FTC, in an effort led by Reenah Kim, a longtime attorney who was involved in the agency’s previous investigation into privacy issues at Facebook, has spoken with at least two of those executives, Damien Kieran and Lea Kissner, three people familiar with the matter said.
Musk’s mass layoffs have unsettled the company’s legal department, which has garnered support and lawyers from Musk’s other companies, including electronic car maker Tesla and rocket maker SpaceX. That has led to confusing directives and caused junior employees to take on new responsibilities for which they are not qualified, three current and former employees said.
In recent months, Twitter has asked the agency for more time to answer questions about staffing and resources, saying its corporate structure and the appointment of top leaders are still in flux. The FTC has the power to fine Twitter again or punish executives with criminal penalties if they mislead investigators about the state of the company’s privacy practices.
In addition to its investigation into the Musk takeover, the agency is also looking into claims raised by a former security executive, Peiter Zatko, who said in a whistleblower complaint that Twitter, under his previous management, made false and misleading statements. about their security practices.
Lina Khan, chair of the FTC, said during a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing in November that she was “extremely disturbed” by Mr. Zatko’s assertions, particularly his claim that Twitter had misled the FTC about its compliance practices. .
“There absolutely has been a problem with companies treating FTC requests as suggestions,” Ms. Khan said. “We have a program in place to really toughen that up.”
Musk’s Twitter also faces potential challenges abroad. In November, Thierry Breton, the European Union’s internal market commissioner, said in a sentence that the company had a “massive job ahead of it” to comply with the bloc’s Digital Services Law, a broad set of laws that will come into effect in 2024 and address misinformation, targeted advertising and content moderation on the platforms social networks.
