Elon Musk, the new owner of Twitter, is facing criticism from members of the social media company’s legal team for allegedly exposing the platform to federal regulators and neglecting to care about “human rights activists” through his current monetization push, according to a report.
A top lawyer for the company posted a message viewable to all staff arguing that Musk is placing the company at risk of violating a previous settlement agreement with the Federal Trade Commission, according to a report from The Verge. Engineers are allegedly being asked to “self-certify compliance” with regulations as the company rushes to make rapid updates to the platform, a reality which exposes the company to “major incidents,” possibly costing billions of dollars.
The attorney also claimed that Alex Spiro, the company’s top lawyer and an adviser to Musk, was overheard saying that “Elon puts rockets into space, he’s not afraid of the FTC,” according to The Verge Colleagues were encouraged to call the firm’s ethics hotline if they felt “uncomfortable” about anything they were being asked to do. Beyond concerns with legal processes at Twitter, however, the author started the message by questioning Musk’s motives behind the decision to charge $7.99 per month for verification, which shows that users are authentic rather than fake accounts.
“Over the last two weeks. Elon has shown that he cares only about recouping the losses he’s incurring as a result of failing to get out of his binding obligation to buy Twitter,” the lawyer wrote. “Elon has shown that his only priority with Twitter users is how to monetize them. I do not believe he cares about the human rights activists. the dissidents, our users in un-monetizable 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 message reportedly corresponds with another round of high-level executives leaving the company. Twitter chief privacy officer Damien Kieran, chief information security officer Lea Kissner, and chief compliance officer Marianne Fogarty have resigned, according to The Verge.
Many executives at Twitter were resistant to the takeover. Vijaya Gadde, who pushed for the suspension of former President Donald Trump and suppressed the Hunter Biden laptop story days before the 2020 election, reportedly cried during a meeting earlier this year about the Musk acquisition. She was fired alongside CEO Parag Agrawal and CFO Ned Segal as soon as the multibillionaire assumed control of the company.
Beyond introducing fees for verification, Musk prohibited users from impersonating others, permanently banning comedian Kathy Griffin for pretending to be Musk himself. “Going forward, any Twitter handles engaging in impersonation without clearly specifying ‘parody’ will be permanently suspended,” Musk cautioned. “Previously, we issued a warning before suspension, but now that we are rolling out widespread verification, there will be no warning.”
Musk, who said he bought the company for $44 billion in order to protect a corner of the public square for open dialogue, induced frustration from leftists after he officially took control of the platform. Musk said that a number of advertisers have since ended their relationships with Twitter, dealing a significant blow to the business at the request of several left-leaning activist organizations, which encouraged them to pause advertisements.