Former top Twitter exec sings like a bird, says social media platform riddled with spies, mismanagement & coverups

Zatko, who used to report directly to former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and later, his successor Parag Agrawal, "paints a picture of a chaotic and reckless environment at a mismanaged company" in the complaint, as per the CNN report.

Zatko was reportedly hired by Dorsey after a large-scale hack in 2020, in which the Twitter handles of several high-profile personalities — including Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and Elon Musk — were compromised.

Zatko, according to CNN, joined a company which he described as incredibly mismanaged, with "extraordinarily poor security practices, including giving thousands of the company's employees — amounting to roughly half the company's workforce — access to some of the platform's critical controls".

He even said he was concerned that some of Twitter's employees sympathised with those who took part in the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol in Washington, when supporters of then-President Donald Trump allegedly tried to overthrow the US government in an attempted coup.

In response, Twitter attacked Zatko's credibility. A Twitter spokesperson told CNN that Zatko was fired more than six months ago for "poor performance and ineffective leadership", and said his allegations were "riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies" and called the complaint an attemot by Zatko "to capture attention and inflict harm on Twitter".

Zatko said his firing was in retaliation for his sounding the alarm about the company's security problems.

The CNN report said Zatko claimed in the disclosure that Agrawal and his top aides repeatedly discouraged him from providing a "full accounting of Twitter's security problems" to the company's board.