Mashable: Former Twitter security chief Peiter Zatko blew the whistle on the company last month, accusing it of exaggerating the efficacy of its anti-hacking and anti-spam measures.

There seems to be a new set of developments in the Twitter whistleblower case, with this time the needle pointing at the social media firm. According to the Wall Street Journal on Thursday, citing people familiar with the subject, Twitter agreed in June to pay nearly $7 million to the whistleblower whose charges would form part of Elon Musk's case against the business.

Former Twitter security chief Peiter "Mudge" Zatko blew the whistle on the company last month, accusing it of exaggerating the efficacy of its anti-hacking and anti-spam measures. Zatko was let go in January.

Zatko is scheduled to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee on September 13 to address the charges.

According to the WSJ, the payment was finalized in the days leading up to Zatko's whistleblower complaint filing in July.

According to the WSJ, as part of the deal, Zatko had to sign a nondisclosure agreement prohibiting him from discussing his time on Twitter or making any negative comments about the business.

The WSJ stated that the settlement, which occurred in June and was connected to Zatko's missed remuneration, was reached after months of mediation over possible pay totaling in the tens of millions of dollars.

After initially agreeing to acquire Twitter for $44 billion, Musk backtracked and said the social news company had deceived him about the amount of bots and phony accounts on the platform, prompting a heated court fight between the two parties.