FTC says Twitter employees saved Elon Musk by disobeying his orders

The FTC found that X didn’t violate the government’s orders on data and security practices Future Publishing/Getty

• Twitter employees seem to have helped Elon Musk dodge another FTC charge.
• Longtime Twitter employees stepped in when Elon Musk said to give writers “access to everything.”
• By ignoring Musk’s orders, they saved the company from another potential FTC charge.

Elon Musk might want to thank the workers who went against his orders.

Twitter employees ignored Musk’s demand to reveal the company’s data to reporters — and may have saved him from another hefty charge from the Federal Trade Commission.

The FTC has been investigating Twitter — now called X — since December 2022 after a group of journalists published the so-called “Twitter Files” that delved into behind-the-scenes looks at the company’s actions before Musk became CEO earlier that year.

According to testimony provided to the FTC, Musk demanded Twitter employees give the reporters “full access to everything at Twitter … No limits at all.”

Musk’s orders, if followed, would have violated government orders that placed restrictions on the social network’s data and security practices.

But according to a letter sent by FTC Chair Lina Khan to House Republicans on Wednesday and reviewed by Business Insider, the company didn’t violate any of the terms.

That’s because longtime IT employees at Twitter ignored Musk and stopped writers from accessing the platform’s internal systems, according to the letter.

In May 2022, the FTC charged Twitter with a $150 million fine for deceptively collecting user data by selling the phone numbers and emails that users listed to protect their accounts to advertisers.

Along with the fine, the charge included six provisions to enhance user data security going forward, one of which included limiting employee access to personal data.