Musk puts Twitter at risk of billions in fines as more top execs quit

SAN FRANCISCO: Elon Musk has put Twitter at risk of billions of dollars in fines, a company lawyer has warned, as chief privacy officer Damien Kieran, chief information security officer Lea Kissner, and chief compliance officer Marianne Fogarty have all quit in the fresh wave of resignations.

In a note posted to Twitter’s Slack and seen by The Verge, an attorney on the company’s privacy team said Musk has shown that his only priority with Twitter users is how to monetise them. “I do not believe he cares about the human rights activists. the dissidents, our users in un-monetisable 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,” the lawyer wrote.

“Everyone here should also know that our CISO, Chief Privacy Officer and Chief Compliance Officer ALL resigned last night. This news will be buried in the return-to-office drama. I believe that is intentional,” he added.

Twitter’s privacy and security teams are in turmoil after Musk’s changes to the service superseded its data governance processes.

The lawyer, whose identity was not revealed, “heard Alex Spiro (current head of Legal) say Elon is willing to take on a huge amount of risk in relation to this company and its users, as Elon puts rockets into space, he’s not afraid of the FTC”. Musk’s new legal department is now asking engineers to aceself-certify” compliance with FTC rules and other privacy laws, as per the lawyer’s note, the report mentioned. In a statement, an FTC spokesperson said the agency was “tracking recent developments at Twitter with deep concern”.

“No CEO or company is above the law, and companies must follow our consent decrees. Our revised consent order gives us new tools to ensure compliance, and we are prepared to use them,” said the FTC spokesperson.