Elon Musk has subpoenaed Twitter whistleblower Peiter Zatko amid his legal battle with the platform

• Elon Musk's legal team subpoenaed Twitter whistleblower Peiter Zatko.
• Zatko accused Twitter of lying to Musk about the number of bots on its platform.

Peiter Zatko a.k.a. "Mudge," Twitter's ex-head of cybersecurity, who filed an explosive whistleblower complaint against the company, has officially been drawn into the legal battle between the social network and Elon Musk.

Zatko filed his whistleblower complaint against Twitter in July and it became public last week. In the complaint Zatko accused Twitter of lax security practices, and specifically of lying to Musk about the number of bots on its platform.

Multiple outlets reported Tuesday that Musk's lawyers had issued a subpoena to Zatko which was publicly filed Monday. Insider was not immediately able to obtain a copy of the subpoena.

Zatko is due to be deposed for the case on September 9, per The Wall Street Journal, The Verge, and CNN. Bloomberg reported Twitter also subpoenaed Zatko.

Attorneys for Zatko released a public statement Monday confirming Musk's team had served him with a subpoena on Saturday.

"Mr. Zatko will comply with his legal obligations of that subpoena and his appearance at the deposition is involuntary," the statement said.

The statement added Zatko didn't file his whistleblower complaint in order to benefit Musk but to "protect the American public and Twitter shareholders."

Twitter sued Musk in July after the Tesla billionaire announced he intended to abandon the $44 billion deal he had struck to buy the company.

Musk said he wanted to walk away from the deal because he believed the number of bots on the platform was higher than Twitter had disclosed.

Twitter's lawyers argued Musk's professed concerns about bots were a pretext for him to drop the deal after his personal wealth shrank.

Zatko said in his complaint that during his employment at Twitter from November 2020 to January this year, executives were not incentivized to accurately measure how many bots were on the platform.

"Deliberate ignorance was the norm among the executive leadership team," Zatko's complaint said.

Twitter has pushed back strongly against the accusations in Zatko's complaint. A Twitter spokesperson told Insider Zatko's "allegations and opportunistic timing appear designed to capture attention and inflict harm on Twitter, its customers and its shareholders."

The company has also characterised Zatko as a disgruntled employee, saying he was fired for "ineffective leadership and poor performance."

Zatko's attorneys said in a statement it was "false" that Zatko was fired for poor performance, instead saying he was fired after raising the alarm about whitewashed information on Twitter's security infrastructure presented to the company's board.