Musk explains why he's dropping Twitter.

SAN FRANCISCO: Musk highlighted Twitter's severance payout to a whistleblower as another reason to withdraw his $44 billion bid.

According to a copy of the termination letter filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, former Twitter security chief Peiter Zatko filed a whistleblower complaint criticising the company's security policies after receiving a multi-million dollar severance payment from Twitter in June.

Lawyers for Musk have argued that the company's failure to get Musk's approval before paying Zatko gives him another reason to back out of the April merger agreement he signed with Twitter.

Twitter disagreed.

Twitter's attorney, William Savitt, said earlier this week, "My buddy seems to be claiming that Twitter should have gratuitously told Musk that there existed a disgruntled former employee who made several charges that had been probed into and found to be without substance."

What a load of nonsense! We reached out to Twitter on Friday but did not receive a response.