Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover being watched with ‘deep concern’ by consumer protection agency

‘Elon puts rockets into space, he’s not afraid of the FTC,’ billionaire’s lawyer reportedly says as top privacy executives leave

The US government’s consumer protection agency says it is following developments at Twitter with “deep concern” following Elon Musk’s $44bn purchase of the platform.

The Federal Trade Commission’s statement on the billionaire’s takeover came as three top Twitter executives in charge of security, privacy and compliance at the company resigned.

Lea Kissner, Twitter’s chief information security officer, Damien Kieran, its chief privacy officer, and Marianne Fogarty, its chief compliance officer all decided to leave the company a day before the deadline for twitter to submit a compliance report to the FTC. Their departures were confirmed on Twitter.

The FTC oversees the company’s privacy practices following a 2011 settlement. The agency also reached a deal with Twitter in May for using personal information to target advertising.

“We are tracking recent developments at Twitter with deep concern. No CEO or company is above the law, and companies must follow our consent decrees,” an FTC spokesperson told The Independent.

“Our revised consent order gives us new tools to ensure compliance, and we are prepared to use them.”

in a note posted to Twitter’s company Slack for all staff, a lawyer on the privacy team encouraged staff to seek whistleblower protection if they felt uncomfortable at what they were being asked to do, reports The Verge.

“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 lawyer, who has not been named, wrote.

And the lawyer added that they have “heard Alex Spiro (Mr Musk’s lawyer) say that Elon is willing to take on a huge amount of risk in relation to this company and its users, because ‘Elon puts rockets into space, he’s not afraid of the FTC.’”

The lawyer stated that because of the speed of changes at the company and the number of staff who have been fired, engineers are being asked to “self-certify” that the company is in compliance with privacy laws and complying with FTC regulations.

On Wednesday Joe Biden said that Mr Musk’s ties to foreign countries are “worth being looked at” over national security concerns.

The president was asked about the world’s richest person’s financial and commercial connections to the likes of China and Saudi Arabia and whether he viewed the South African-born billionaire as a threat to American security.

“I think that Elon Musk’s cooperation and or technical relationships with other countries is worthy of being looked at, whether or not he is doing anything inappropriate – I’m not suggesting that, I’m suggesting it’s worth being looked at. That’s all I’ll say,” replied Mr Biden during a post-midterms press conference.