Twitter source code leaked online, adding to Elon Musk's struggles

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Twitter source code leaked online, adding to Elon Musk's struggles

Parts of Twitter's source code were leaked online, adding to the social media giant's struggles since Elon Musk acquired the company, according to recent court filings.

What Happened: On Friday, Twitter took action to remove the source code by issuing a copyright infringement notice to GitHub, which resulted in its prompt removal. The code isn't known how long it will be available, according to The New York Times.

Musk announced last week that the platform would open source all code used for recommending tweets.

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According to the filing, Twitter asked the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California to require GitHub to disclose the identity of the individual who disclosed the code and any other parties who may have downloaded it.

The report noted that Twitter executives were concerned about the code being used by hackers or other motivated parties to extract user data or take down the site, as it included security vulnerabilities.

Anthony Levandowski, a self-driving car engineer, received an 18 month jail term in 2020 for unlawfully obtaining code from Alphabet Inc. GOOG GOOGL Google. Microsoft Corporation MSFT suffered a breach last year that resulted in a hacking group stealing its source code.

The report stated that two people briefed on the company's internal investigation were also told by Twitter executives that whoever leaked the code left the company in 2022.

Since Musk bought Twitter, about 75% of the employees have been fired or left. The site has been dealing with several technical issues, including bugs and outages.

On Friday, Musk told employees that Twitter was worth around $20 billion — less than half of what he paid.

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