- By Peter Hoskin
- business reporter
2 hours ago
Portions of the source code underpinning multi-billionaire Elon Musk’s social media platform have been leaked online, according to Twitter.
The code is said to have been posted on GitHub, a Microsoft-owned service where software developers share code.
It has now been removed after Twitter requested its removal.
Separately, Mr Musk has reportedly signaled to Twitter staff that the company is worth less than half the $44 billion (£36 billion) he paid for it last year.
“GitHub generally does not comment on content removal decisions. However, in the interest of transparency, we share every DMCA [Digital Millennium Copyright Act] Make takedown request public,” a GitHub spokesperson told the BBC.
The DMCA came into force in the United States in 1998. It aims to protect copyrighted material on the Internet.
In the removal request, Twitter asked GitHub to provide information about who was behind the account that leaked the code – dubbed FreeSpeechEnthusiast.
San Francisco-based Twitter said in the filing that the account infringed the company’s copyrights.
The leak poses a new challenge for Mr Musk, who has reduced Twitter’s workforce by more than a third and has faced an exodus of advertisers since buying the platform last October.
Meanwhile, the Tesla boss has reportedly pointed out that Twitter is now valued at less than $20 billion.
The enterprise value estimate was based on Mr. Musk’s offer of stock grants to employees, according to technology news websites Platformer and the Information, which first reported the story.
Mr. Musk also reportedly told employees, “I see a clear but difficult path to a valuation of >$250 billion,” indicating a more than 10-fold increase in Twitter’s valuation.