Grilling on Musk investigation: Khan has long been a target of committee Chair Jim Jordan. Jordan, who also chairs the Judiciary’s Weaponization of the Federal Government Subcommittee, subpoenaed Khan in April for agency documents related to the FTC’s ongoing probe into Musk and whether he violated a May 2022 privacy settlement, where Twitter paid $150 million for misusing user’s data, and stemmed from an earlier 2011 settlement.
The Weaponization subcommittee released a report in March summarizing over a dozen letters it obtained that were sent to Musk in the three months after he bought Twitter in October 2022. Musk’s tumultuous start at Twitter led to the resignation of the company’s top privacy, cybersecurity and compliance officers, raising concerns that Twitter would not abide by the settlement agreement. These high-profile exits prompted a rare warning from the agency’s spokesperson: “We are tracking recent developments at Twitter with deep concern,” adding that “[n]o CEO or company is above the law, and companies must follow our consent decrees.”
The subcommittee’s report alleged that under Khan’s leadership, the FTC has been attempting to “harass” Twitter and “pry into the company’s decisions on matters outside of the FTC’s mandate,” suggesting the FTC’s ongoing enforcement of the settlement is “partisan.”
The FTC has refuted those claims. “FTC investigations are straightforward and nonpolitical,” Farrar said in a March 8 Twitter thread in response to the report. “The consent order the FTC has with Twitter isn’t about Musk’s acquisition of the company or their content moderation policies. This isn’t about free speech, it’s about the FTC doing its job to protect Americans’ privacy.”
Twitter whistleblower probe: Another line of inquiry could be about claims from former Twitter security chief Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, who alleged in a whistleblower complaint last August that the company intentionally misled the FTC and violated the terms of the 2011 settlement. If the FTC finds additional violations, the company and Musk could be on the hook for even larger fines. The FTC is currently investigating those claims, according to a person familiar with the probe who is not authorized to speak publicly.