“In a nutshell, if we were already in bed, it would be problematic if we lost that revenue stream,” he said.

Zatko said on Tuesday that in the week before he was fired from Twitter, he learnt the FBI told the company an agent of China’s Ministry of State Security, or MSS, the country’s main espionage agency, was on the payroll at Twitter.

A Twitter spokesperson said the hearing “only confirms that Mr Zatko’s allegations are riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies“.

The spokesperson said Twitter’s hiring process was independent of foreign influence and access to data was managed through background checks and monitoring and detection systems.

Zatko said he recalled a conversation with another Twitter executive about concerns that a foreign agent was inside the company. The executive responded: “Well, since we already have one, what does it matter if we have more?”

Grassley noted that Agrawal refused to appear at the hearing for fear it could jeopardise the company’s litigation against Elon Musk, who is also the chief executive officer of Tesla. Twitter and Musk head to trial next month over whether the billionaire’s takeover deal should be completed.

Twitter shareholders approved Musk’s buyout of the company, Twitter said on Tuesday after a virtual special meeting of stockholders.

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The San Francisco-based company sued Musk for terminating the agreement, while Musk counter-sued, accusing Twitter of misrepresenting the number of false and spam accounts on its service.

Little of what Zatko said appeared to be particularly helpful for getting Musk out of the deal, according to Ann Lipton, a professor at Tulane University Law School.

The deal contract excludes legislative changes that Congress might adopt and Zatko said fines by the Federal Trade Commission are priced into the business. Lipton said that suggests regulatory action against Twitter will not rise to the level of a material event that could nullify the deal agreement.

The lack of evidence to support Zatko’s claims that Twitter did not have sufficient controls for spam bots also will not help Musk’s legal team, which has used the issue in an attempt to end the deal, Ives said.

A Delaware judge ruled last week that Musk may include Zatko’s whistleblower claims in his case against Twitter, but denied his request to delay the trial.

The Senate committee questioned Zatko over his claims that Twitter misled regulators about its compliance with a 2011 settlement with the Federal Trade Commission over improper handling of user data.

Since then, Twitter has made “little meaningful progress on basic security, integrity and privacy systems,” Zatko’s complaint filed with regulators in July said.

Zatko’s whistleblower complaint appeared to contain more than two pages of links to supporting documents, such as emails between Zatko and Agrawal and an assessment of misinformation and disinformation on Twitter.

The number of documents was limited compared with those provided by Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, who released thousands of pages of internal material.

Reuters