Elon Musk's Twitter faces another challenge as its source code leaks online

Social media platform Twitter has been hit with another obstacle after excerpts of its source code were leaked online, according to court documents. The documents, filed with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, reveal that Twitter issued a subpoena to a software collaboration platform GitHub after a user shared snippets of its source code without permission. The username of the person who shared the data was “FreeSpeechEnthusiast”. 

According to a report by CNBC, GitHub shared some details about the leaked code after being requested by concerned authorities (DMCA).  The leaked code includes "proprietary source code for Twitter’s platform and internal tools." It is not clear whether the source code used to recommend tweets is part of the leak.

Twitter's counsel said the subpoena's purpose is to identify the person who shared the code, and GitHub has since complied with Twitter's request, removing the content on the same day. Twitter has not yet responded to requests for comment.

This is the latest challenge for Twitter, which has faced a number of hurdles since Elon Musk's $44 billion takeover of the company last year. The tech billionaire has previously said that the code used to recommend tweets will be open-sourced on March 31, and that transparency could be "incredibly embarrassing" at first. 

Elon Musk recently also acknowledged that Twitter's value stands at almost half of what he bought it for. A recent report suggested that Twitter's valuation sits at around $20 billion. Musk has been trying to increase revenue by adding a Twitter Blue subscription service and by offering advertisers more benefits.

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