The US filing said that during a deposition, "Kissner testified that decisions by Musk and others—including layoffs and other 'cost-cutting pressure and decisions'—impaired X Corp.'s ability to 'put technical restrictions and controls in place... around the company's use of contact data to make sure that it was being used.

 Within days of the initial layoffs, three key data privacy and security executives all resigned: Chief Privacy Officer Damien Kieran, Chief Information Security Officer Lea Kissner, and Chief Compliance Officer Marianne Fogarty," the filing said. "These three had been the sole remaining members of the company's Data Governance Committee, which was tasked with interpreting and modifying data policies and practices to ensure X Corp. complied with the 2022 Administrative Order."

The US filing said that during a deposition, "Kissner testified that decisions by Musk and others—including layoffs and other 'cost-cutting pressure and decisions'—impaired X Corp.'s ability to 'put technical restrictions and controls in place... around the company's use of contact data to make sure that it was being used... for the purpose that the particular contact data was collected.'"

Kissner further testified that after the mass employee exodus, "about half of the controls in X Corp.'s information security program did not have a designated 'owner' responsible for their operation. Similarly, at his deposition, Kieran testified that the firings and layoffs meant no one was responsible for about 37 percent of X Corp.'s privacy program controls," the US wrote.

“Musk’s conduct”

The next section of the US government filing is titled "Musk's Conduct." After buying the social network and taking over as CEO and sole director, "Musk also personally assumed supervisory authority over X Corp.'s privacy and information security program under the 2022 Administrative Order," the US said.

"Former X Corp. employees testified about several concerning incidents involving Musk," the US wrote. "For example, in early December 2022, Musk reportedly directed staff to grant an outside third-party journalist 'full access to everything at Twitter... No limits at all.' Consistent with Musk's direction, the journalist was initially assigned a company laptop and internal account, with the intent that they be given 'elevated privileges beyond just what a[n] average employee might have.'"