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The intense media scrutiny continues with the Twitter lawsuit to force Elon Musk to go through with the deal to buy the company for $44 billion. And the world’s richest man is demanding more information about the Twitter bots he claims are the “single most annoying problem” on the popular social media platform.

The case is playing out in a Delaware Court of Chancery. And a whistleblower has emerged. 

Petier Zatko, Twitter's ex-security chief, made several shocking allegations that the platform was misleading the Federal Trade Commission. And was also lying to Musk about Twitter bots.

Elon cancels deal

After months of negotiations, it looked like Elon Musk was set to take charge of the San Francisco-based company in April. But he was still requesting information about how many daily active users are on the site. And sent a letter to the SEC in May that the deal was missing vital input. 

Early in July, the billionaire notified the SEC he was canceling the deal.

On July 9th Musk’s attorneys filed a letter with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, canceling the deal. Musk's attorneys claim Twitter failed or simply refused to provide important information to the SpaceX and Tesla CEO.

"Sometimes Twitter has ignored Mr. Musk's requests, sometimes it has rejected them for reasons that appear to be unjustified, and sometimes it has claimed to comply while giving Mr. Musk incomplete or unusable information," the letter reads.

Twitter shares fell by 7% during extended trading after the announcement.

Twitter quickly responded claiming they would force Musk to enforce the agreement.

"The Twitter Board is committed to closing the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon with Mr. Musk," Twitter chairman Bret Taylor tweeted out.

 It’s all about the Twitter bots

Twitter bots aka spam accounts are designed to spread ads or information throughout the online community. Twitter has insisted they represent less than 5% of all users. Musk believes that the bots could account for 20% or more.

At one point Twitter said it removes around 1 million bot accounts every day.

There are Twitter accounts claiming to have a cure for Covid-19? And touting cryptocurrency get-rich-quick schemes.

 These are more than likely Twitter bots. The fake accounts are used for trolling and spreading misinformation. They can also be set to spread malware.

Scammers can use Twitter bots as a tool to infiltrate other social media accounts and potentially even a user's personal information.

Anti-virus software company Norton, explains bots, also known as zombies, are programmed to perform tasks that can resemble those of human Twitter users.

Liking tweets and following other users are part of their functions. But a “zombie” is usually set to tweet and retweet certain content to achieve certain ends. And one spam account doesn’t work. The bots operate “at scale.”  And they are most often part of a larger group of hundreds of automated accounts called a botnet.

All the bots in a botnet like and follow each other, working in concert to appear as legitimate human Twitter users.

How malicious a bot is depending on who is deploying it. And for what purpose.