A Twitter whistleblower came forward and the claims he made are bringing the heat to the Twitter vs. Elon Musk trial that’s coming up in a couple of months. The whistleblower said he was fired after flagging security concerns to Twitter’s leadership and board. Some of these concerns were about the bots.
It seems that for Twitter, the bots are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Lurking in the depths is a threat to users’ personal information, national security, and even democracy. CNN and The Washington Post obtained the whistleblower disclosure which was sent last month to Congress and federal agencies.
According to the reports by both, Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, publicly came forward and said that Twitter has major security flaws that could pose a threat to its user’s personal information, national security, and even democracy.
Zatko is Twitter’s former head of security and once reported directly to the CEO. He wanted to help Twitter fix its technical shortcomings which have been a problem for years. According to Zatko, Twitter’s leadership misled its own board members about its security vulnerabilities; some of which allowed for hacking, disinformation campaigns, and foreign spying.
And when a Twitter user deletes their account, Twitter may not delete their data because it got lost. Additionally, Twitter executives don’t have the resources to fully understand the actual number of bots on its platform. They don’t even want to try, according to Zatko.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been smeared by many news outlets for pulling out of his deal with Twitter over the bot issue yet I’ve seen with my own eyes just how problematic these bots are. Every time he tweets, we see these verified crypto scammer bots trying to lure people to click a malicious website. Twitter does nothing. I’ve seen this. Critics of Elon Musk claim that this problem isn’t real and he’s just backing out because he’s a fraud. This, in my opinion, is not true. The bot problem is legitimate.
When CNN asked Twitter for a comment, the company did not hold back with its own spice. It said that Zatko was fired over poor performance and ineffective leadership. Twitter also claimed that Zatko’s narrative was “riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies, and lacks important context.”
Twitter also says that said that Zatko’s coming forward appeared designed to inflict harm on Twitter. Here’s the full statement from CNN:
“Mr. Zatko was fired from his senior executive role at Twitter for poor performance and ineffective leadership over six months ago. While we haven’t had access to the specific allegations being referenced, what we’ve seen so far is a narrative about our privacy and data security practices that is riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies, and lacks important context. Mr. Zatko’s allegations and opportunistic timing appear designed to capture attention and inflict harm on Twitter, its customers, and its shareholders. Security and privacy have long been company-wide priorities at Twitter and we still have a lot of work ahead of us.”
My 2.5¢
Both articles by CNN and The Washington Post are must-reads and I suggest you go back and read them. The statements that Zatko has made do not look good for Twitter. Neither does Twitter’s response to CNN. If anything, the response itself seemed a bit defensive and for a company that is tangled in a web of lawsuits over bots, it would have been better if Twitter didn’t comment.
Zatko was brought in after the 2020 hack to identify security issues. And when he did, he was fired for it? Speaking of the 2020 hack I’ll share my observations. I remember the uptick of the crypto scammers targeting Elon Musk. They were and still are a constant nuisance. Just before Twitter was hacked, the spamming intensified. And since that hack, the spamming has continued.
These scammers would not only impersonate Elon Musk, but also his followers. I’ve even been impersonated–before I became verified. Many others who Elon would reply to on Twitter were also impersonated. And all too often, when we reported them for impersonation, Twitter would find nothing wrong and give us the automated response saying that the impersonators did not violate Twitter’s terms.
What I find strange is that Twitter still has not solved this issue after having been hacked. At least, it appears that they didn’t solve it. And Zatko’s confirmation that Twitter has no desire to worry me.
Note: Johnna is a Tesla shareholder and supports its mission.
Your feedback is important. If you have any comments, concerns, or see a typo, you can email me at johnna@teslarati.com. You can also reach me on Twitter @JohnnaCrider1
Elon Musk
SpaceX wins its first MARS contract but it comes with a catch
NASA awarded SpaceX a $175 million Mars rover contract while the White House proposes cutting the mission.
NASA just signed a $175.7 million contract with SpaceX to launch a Mars rover that the White House is simultaneously trying to defund. The contract, awarded on April 16, 2026, tasks SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy with launching the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Rosalind Franklin rover from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, no earlier than late 2028. It would mark the first time SpaceX has ever sent a payload to Mars.
Under NASA’s Rosalind Franklin Support and Augmentation project, known as ROSA, the agency is providing braking engines for the rover’s descent stage, radioisotope heater units that use decaying plutonium to keep the rover warm on the Martian surface, additional electronics, and a mass spectrometer instrument, as noted by SpaceNews.
Those nuclear heating units are the reason an American rocket was required at all. U.S. export controls on radioisotope technology mean any payload carrying them must launch on a domestic vehicle, which narrowed the field to SpaceX and United Launch Alliance. Falcon Heavy’s pricing made it the practical choice.
SpaceX is quietly becoming the U.S. Military’s only reliable rocket
Falcon Heavy debuted in February 2018 and has 11 launches to its record. The rocket has not flown since October 2024, when it sent NASA’s Europa Clipper toward Jupiter. The three-core design, built from modified Falcon 9 first stages, gives it the lift capacity needed for deep space planetary missions that a single Falcon 9 cannot reach.
The Rosalind Franklin rover has been sitting in storage in Europe for years. It was originally due to launch in 2022 as a joint mission with Russia, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine ended that partnership, leaving the rover built but stranded without a launch vehicle or landing hardware. NASA stepped back in through a 2024 agreement with ESA to rescue the mission. The rover is designed to drill up to two meters below the Martian surface in search of evidence of past life, a science objective no previous mission has attempted at that depth.
The contradiction at the center of this story is hard to ignore. The White House’s fiscal year 2027 budget proposal included no funding for ROSA and did not mention the mission at all in the detailed congressional justification document released April 3.
Musk has long argued that reaching Mars is not optional. “We don’t want to be one of those single planet species, we want to be a multi-planet species.” Whether this particular mission survives Washington’s budget fight, the Falcon Heavy contract means SpaceX is now formally on record as the rocket that could get humanity’s next Mars science mission off the ground.
The timing of this contract carries extra weight given that SpaceX filed confidentially with the SEC in early April and is targeting an IPO roadshow in the week of June 8. It would be the largest public offering in history.
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) is set to hold its Earnings Call for the first quarter of 2026 on Wednesday, and there are a lot of interesting things that are swirling around in terms of speculation from investors.
With the company’s executives, including CEO Elon Musk, answering a handful of questions that investors submit through the Say platform, fans want to know a lot of things about a lot of things.
These five questions come from Retail Investors, who are normal, everyday shareholders:
- When will we have the Optimus v3 reveal? When will Optimus production start, since we ended the Model S and Model X production earlier than mid-year? What’s the expected Optimus production rate exiting this year? What are the initial targeted skills?
- What milestones are you targeting for unsupervised FSD and Robotaxi expansion beyond Austin this year, and how will that drive recurring revenue?
- How will Hardware 3 cars reach Unsupervised Full Self-Driving?
- When do you expect Unsupervised Full Self-Driving to reach customer cars?
- When will Robotaxi expand past its current limited rollout?
Additionally, these are currently the three questions that are slated to be answered by Institutional Firms, which also answer a handful of questions during the call:
- Now that FSD has been approved in the Netherlands and is expected to launch across Europe this summer, can you discuss your Robotaxi strategy for the region?
- What enabled you to finish the AI5 tapeout early and were there any changes to the original vision? Last week, Elon said AI5 will go into Optimus and the Supercomputer, but one month ago said it would go into the Robotaxi. Has AI5 been dropped from the vehicle roadmap?
- Given the recent NHTSA incident filings, can you update us on the Robotaxi safety data? If safety validation remains the primary bottleneck, why not deploy thousands of vehicles to accelerate the removal of the safety driver?
The questions range through every current Tesla project, including FSD expansion and Optimus. However, many of the answers we will get will likely be repetitive answers we’ve heard in the past.
This is especially pertinent when the questions about when Unsupervised FSD will reach customer cars: we know Musk will say that it will happen this year. Is Tesla capable of that? Maybe. But a more transparent answer that is more revealing of a true timeline would be appreciated.
Hardware 3 owners are anxiously awaiting the arrival of FSD v14 Lite, which was promised to them last year for a release sometime this year.
The Earnings Call is set to take place on Wednesday at market close.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk reveals shocking Tesla Optimus patent detail
What looked promising on paper and in simulations failed to deliver the reliability required for a robot expected to handle delicate tasks like folding laundry, assembling electronics, or assisting in factories and homes.
Elon Musk revealed a shocking detail on the Tesla Optimus patent that was revealed last week. Despite it being made public for the first time, Musk said the company has already moved on from the design, an incredible truth about the development of new technology: things move fast.
Musk dropped a bombshell about the Tesla Optimus humanoid robot hand patent that was released last week. Musk, candidly replying to a post late at night on X, revealed that what is a new technology to many fans and insiders is actually old news to those developing the tech directly.
“We already changed the design,” Musk said. “This one didn’t actually work.”
We already changed the design. This one didn’t actually work.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 19, 2026
Patents, after all, are often viewed as blueprints for future products. Yet Musk revealed that the rolling contact mechanism—intended to provide smooth, low-friction articulation in the fingers—had already been scrapped after real-world testing exposed its shortcomings.
What looked promising on paper and in simulations failed to deliver the reliability required for a robot expected to handle delicate tasks like folding laundry, assembling electronics, or assisting in factories and homes.
The hand has been one of the biggest challenges for Tesla engineers since Optimus development started years ago. Musk has said that there is not enough recognition for how incredible and useful the human hand is, and designing one for a humanoid robot has been the biggest challenge of all.
Tesla is stumped on how to engineer this Optimus part, but they’re close
This moment underscores the persistent engineering hurdles in achieving reliable humanoid hand dexterity. Human fingers are marvels of evolution: 27 bones, intricate tendons, ligaments, and a network of sensors working in perfect harmony. Replicating that in metal and silicon is extraordinarily difficult.
Rolling contacts promised reduced wear and precise motion, but testing likely revealed issues with durability under repeated stress, grip stability on varied surfaces, or the micro-precision needed for fine motor skills.
These aren’t minor tweaks, but instead they represent fundamental challenges that have plagued robotics teams for decades. Even advanced competitors struggle here—hands remain the Achilles’ heel of most humanoids because the margin for error is razor-thin.
A fraction of a millimeter off, and a robot drops a glass or fails to button a shirt.
What makes Musk’s reply remarkable is how it signals Tesla’s direct communication style on prototype limitations. While many companies guard failures behind glossy marketing and vague timelines, Tesla openly shares setbacks.
Musk was forthcoming about the failure of this recent design. This transparency builds trust with investors, engineers, and fans. It shows Tesla treats Optimus development like true science: rapid iteration, rigorous testing, and zero tolerance for hype that doesn’t match reality.
The disclosure from Musk also highlights Tesla’s blistering pace of development. By the time the patents are published, which is often over a year after the initial filing, the technology has already evolved.
Optimus is far from a static product, and it’s a living project advancing weekly.
In the high-stakes race for general-purpose robots, Tesla’s approach stands out. Admitting a finger-joint design “didn’t actually work” isn’t a weakness—it’s confidence.
True innovation demands confronting failure head-on, and Musk just reminded the world that Optimus is being engineered that way. The next version of those hands is already in testing, and it will be better because Tesla isn’t afraid to say what didn’t work.
SpaceX wins its first MARS contract but it comes with a catch
Tesla Q1 Earnings: What Elon Musk and Co. will answer during the call
