The lawyer, Christian Dowell, rose to the top of Twitter’s legal department in recent months after the company’s legal leaders resigned or were fired by Musk. Dowell had been intimately involved in Twitter’s recent negotiations with the Federal Trade Commission, two people familiar with those discussions said.
The FTC, which currently has oversight over Twitter, is looking into a former executive’s claims that the company has had security problems. The commission accelerated its inquiry after the sudden resignations of three Twitter executives responsible for privacy, security and compliance. They departed Twitter in November, shortly after Musk acquired the company.
The agency’s investigation into Twitter has intensified in recent months, and is scrutinizing whether the company has the resources to uphold its privacy promises after mass layoffs and resignations.
Dowell did not respond to a request for comment. Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Musk sought to meet with some of the FTC commissioners in recent months to discuss the investigation, two people familiar with his efforts said. Only Christine Wilson, the departing Republican commissioner, accepted his request. Dowell coordinated Twitter’s responses to the FTC’s inquiries and participated in arranging the meeting, those people said.
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Dowell joined Twitter in 2020 after stints at the question-and-answer site Quora and Facebook, and focused on product issues before he was promoted in December, becoming the head of legal overseeing Twitter’s product. Beyond the FTC investigation, Twitter is facing a host of lawsuits over unpaid bills for software, vendor services and rent. Former employees have also sued the company, claiming that it violated labor laws during layoffs.
Dowell’s resignation comes as Musk said he was building a “powerful litigation team” at Tesla, his electric carmaker.
It was not immediately clear who at Twitter might inherit Dowell’s legal responsibilities.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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