Elon Musk: Twitter asks who put source code on GitHub
FortuneMar 27, 2023
The Facts
Parts of Twitter Inc's source code were posted online and had been exposed until Friday when the company had the material removed, Twitter has said. It also announced that the company has filed a court order to locate the source of the leak.
According to court filings, Twitter issued a subpoena to the software collaboration platform GitHub, where a user called "FreeSpeechEnthusiast" shared portions of Twitter's source code without permission. Twitter argues the postings infringe on the company's copyrights.
The Spin
Establishment-critical narrative
Elon Musk has previously said that he is a free-speech absolutist — surely this should apply to Twitter source code. Musk has himself claimed that all forms of transparency should be practiced in order for the freedom of speech to be upheld. If this is true then Twitter should drop its filing.
Pro-establishment narrative
Someone unlawfully stole and leaked Twitter's source code, thereby infringing upon the company's copyright. Likely committed by a disgruntled Twitter employee, this incident should serve as a warning for all tech companies to take their security more seriously.
Nerd narrative
There is a 50% chance that Elon Musk will be replaced as CEO of Twitter by December, 2023, according to the Metaculus prediction community.