Twitter Slaps Back at Surge of FTC Enforcement, Asks Court to Nix Musk Deposition

Twitter is asking a federal court to rein in an investigation of the company by the Federal Trade Commission, claiming the probe “has spiraled out of control and become tainted by bias.” It also seeks to have an order by the agency that limits its data security practices thrown out.

The company, now officially known as X Corp., also asked the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California to block the FTC from deposing owner Elon Musk, claiming that its goal in questioning the billionaire “derives from the same bad faith and improper conduct that has characterized its investigation to date.”

The suit was filed hours before FTC Commission Lina Khan testified on Capitol Hill, The Washington Post reported, noting that she “received a hostile reception from Republicans who have accused her of mismanaging the agency and conducting a politicized probe into Twitter.”

Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan, the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, mention the suit in his opening remarks, where he called the scrutiny of Twitter since Musk’s takeover in October as “targeted harassment,” the report said.

The suit stems from a 2011 consent order that the former Twitter leadership signed with the FTC, which resulted from an agency probe into incidents of unauthorized access into Twitter’s systems. The consent order resolved charges that Twitter violated the law by misrepresenting how it protected user information from hackers and other unauthorized access. Part of the order required that Twitter get an outside party to assess its security efforts, which it did, and things proceeded uneventfully for about eight years.

In 2019, after Twitter revealed that “some email addresses and phone numbers provided for account
security may have been used unintentionally for advertising purposes,” the agency ramped up its scrutiny. The consent order was twice revisited, including a provision that Twitter establish and maintain and “comprehensive privacy and information security program” that would protect user information. Twitter paid a $150 million penalty in May 2022.

Months later, in August, the agency began investigating a complaint from whistleblower Peiter “Mudge” Zatko that accused the company of burying “egregious deficiencies” in violation of the consent order, The Washington Post reported.

The agency’s concerns about the platforms’ operations increased amid the chaos that followed Musk’s Oct. 27 takeover of the company.

In March an FTC probe of Musk’s mass layoffs at Twitter came to light. The agency was also trying to obtain his internal communications as part of ongoing its oversight into the social media company’s privacy and cybersecurity practices, The Associated Press reported.

But the suit alleges that the agency has barraged the company with requests for information only since Musk took over. Since November, “the FTC has pummeled X Corp. with burdensome demand letters and requests for depositions,” the suit states. “X Corp. has made every effort to comply promptly and
completely with the FTC’s more than 200 demands for information and documents, and has
produced more than 22,000 documents.”

Some of the requests have “at best, tenuous connections to the privacy and security of user data or X. Corp.’s compliance with the consent order,” the suit states, “and many are seemingly issued in response to whatever negative news happens to be published about Twitter that day.”

One requests, the suit states, “sought ‘all communications’ sent by any Twitter employee ‘relating to Elon Musk’ in any way, along with every communication sent to or from Mr. Musk since he had acquired control of Twitter.”

The suit also claims that the Khan and other FTC staff refused to meet with Musk despite multiple requests. His only meeting came with an FTC commissioner who had already submitted her resignation.

It also cites statements from one of Twitter’s outside auditors from Ernst and Young that the FTC probe that “somebody outside of the arrangement [EY] had with Twitter trying to influence the outcome of [EY’s] results.”

In the filing, Twitter asks the court to “rein in an investigation that has spiraled out of control and become tainted by bias, and to terminate a misfit consent order that no longer can serve any proper equitable purpose.” And it seeks a stay that would prevent the FTC from deposing Musk.

A hearing date is listed for Aug. 17, but the filing states that a hearing may occur on a different day if the the court orders.

Twitter is asking a federal court to rein in an investigation of the company by the Federal Trade Commission, claiming the probe “has spiraled out of control and become tainted by bias.” It also seeks to have an order by the agency that limits its data security practices thrown out.

The company, now officially known as X Corp., also asked the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California to block the FTC from deposing owner Elon Musk, claiming that its goal in questioning the billionaire “derives from the same bad faith and improper conduct that has characterized its investigation to date.”

The suit was filed hours before FTC Commission Lina Khan testified on Capitol Hill, The Washington Post reported, noting that she “received a hostile reception from Republicans who have accused her of mismanaging the agency and conducting a politicized probe into Twitter.”

Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan, the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, mention the suit in his opening remarks, where he called the scrutiny of Twitter since Musk’s takeover in October as “targeted harassment,” the report said.

The suit stems from a 2011 consent order that the former Twitter leadership signed with the FTC, which resulted from an agency probe into incidents of unauthorized access into Twitter’s systems. The consent order resolved charges that Twitter violated the law by misrepresenting how it protected user information from hackers and other unauthorized access. Part of the order required that Twitter get an outside party to assess its security efforts, which it did, and things proceeded uneventfully for about eight years.

In 2019, after Twitter revealed that “some email addresses and phone numbers provided for account
security may have been used unintentionally for advertising purposes,” the agency ramped up its scrutiny. The consent order was twice revisited, including a provision that Twitter establish and maintain and “comprehensive privacy and information security program” that would protect user information. Twitter paid a $150 million penalty in May 2022.

Months later, in August, the agency began investigating a complaint from whistleblower Peiter “Mudge” Zatko that accused the company of burying “egregious deficiencies” in violation of the consent order, The Washington Post reported.

The agency’s concerns about the platforms’ operations increased amid the chaos that followed Musk’s Oct. 27 takeover of the company.

In March an FTC probe of Musk’s mass layoffs at Twitter came to light. The agency was also trying to obtain his internal communications as part of ongoing its oversight into the social media company’s privacy and cybersecurity practices, The Associated Press reported.

But the suit alleges that the agency has barraged the company with requests for information only since Musk took over. Since November, “the FTC has pummeled X Corp. with burdensome demand letters and requests for depositions,” the suit states. “X Corp. has made every effort to comply promptly and
completely with the FTC’s more than 200 demands for information and documents, and has
produced more than 22,000 documents.”

Some of the requests have “at best, tenuous connections to the privacy and security of user data or X. Corp.’s compliance with the consent order,” the suit states, “and many are seemingly issued in response to whatever negative news happens to be published about Twitter that day.”

One requests, the suit states, “sought ‘all communications’ sent by any Twitter employee ‘relating to Elon Musk’ in any way, along with every communication sent to or from Mr. Musk since he had acquired control of Twitter.”

The suit also claims that the Khan and other FTC staff refused to meet with Musk despite multiple requests. His only meeting came with an FTC commissioner who had already submitted her resignation.

It also cites statements from one of Twitter’s outside auditors from Ernst and Young that the FTC probe that “somebody outside of the arrangement [EY] had with Twitter trying to influence the outcome of [EY’s] results.”

In the filing, Twitter asks the court to “rein in an investigation that has spiraled out of control and become tainted by bias, and to terminate a misfit consent order that no longer can serve any proper equitable purpose.” And it seeks a stay that would prevent the FTC from deposing Musk.

A hearing date is listed for Aug. 17, but the filing states that a hearing may occur on a different day if the the court orders.