FTC chair refused Musk’s meeting request, told him to stop delaying investigation

Enlarge / FTC Chair Lina Khan speaks during the Spring Enforcers Summit at the Department of Justice in Washington, DC, on Monday, March 27, 2023. (credit: Getty Images | Bloomberg)

Twitter owner Elon Musk requested a meeting with Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan late last year, but he was rebuffed and told to stop dragging his heels on providing documents and depositions needed for the FTC investigation into Twitter's privacy and data practices, a New York Times report said yesterday.

"In a Jan. 27 letter declining the meeting, Ms. Khan told a Twitter lawyer to focus on complying with investigators' demands for information before she would consider meeting with Mr. Musk," the NYT wrote.

Twitter has to comply with conditions in a May 2022 settlement in which it agreed to pay a $150 million penalty for targeting ads at users with phone numbers and email addresses collected from those users when they enabled two-factor authentication. Last year's settlement was reached after the FTC said Twitter violated the terms of a 2011 settlement that prohibited the company from misrepresenting its privacy and security practices.