Los Angeles: In light of Elon Musk's intentions for another round of layoffs, the US government is now investigating whether his foreign investment partners have access to user data on the microblogging site.
According to sources cited by Bloomberg, the government is requesting further information regarding Musk's secret arrangements with foreign investors who own stock in the company.
Prince Al Waleed bin Talal Al Saud of Saudi Arabia and the Qatar Investment Authority are two of these investors. The government levels have already expressed alarm over Musk's business dealings in China and the Ukraine.
Government officials are currently "investigating whether Musk's foreign investment partners have access to consumers' private data on the platform."
Asserting that Musk's "relationships with other countries is worthy of being looked at," U.S. President Joe Biden has underlined his concern. Further, Democratic senator from Connecticut Chris Murphy requested that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS) investigate Saudi Arabia's ownership of Twitter.
US senators have requested the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to look into potential consumer protection law violations at Musk-owned Twitter in a letter to FTC chairperson Lina Khan.
We urge the FTC to look into any violations of our consumer protection laws or Twitter's consent order as a result of the company's "serious, intentional disregard" for the safety and security of its users, according to the letter.
The letter said, "Mr. Musk, the new CEO of Twitter, has taken worrying actions that have damaged the integrity and safety of the site, and introduced new features despite obvious warnings that modifications will be misused for fraud, scams, and deadly impersonation."
According to media reports, Twitter's executives prioritised increasing profits and reducing costs, which prevented managers and staff in charge of ensuring safety and legal compliance from reviewing the product updates. They also reportedly let go of key employees, reduced internal privacy reviews, and forced engineers to assume legal liability for new changes.
The Senators informed the FTC that "important Twitter executives responsible for the platform's privacy, cybersecurity, and integrity resigned, further raising concerns about how well personal data is secured from abuse or compromise while the business explores new products and monetization schemes."
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