Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Beijing, March 31 (Xinhua) as the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the US antitrust agency, stepped up its investigation into Twitter's privacy and data practices, Twitter boss Elon Musk tried to intervene personally, seeking direct contact with the commission's chairman, Lina Khan, but was refused, according to documents.

Khan, chairman of the FTC, said Musk asked to meet with Khan last year, but was refused. Khan told Twitter lawyers in a letter refusing to meet on January 27 that Twitter would focus on meeting investigators' requests for information before she would consider a meeting with Musk.

Musk spoke last month with FTC's only Republican commissioner, Christine Wilson, based on email exchanges between FTC staff and information provided by two people familiar with the matter. Wilson plans to leave the agency on Friday, which she says is out of concern about Khan's leadership.

Musk took the initiative to contact FTC to show the seriousness of the agency's investigation into Twitter. The investigation stems from a privacy settlement reached between Twitter and FTC in 2011, which required the company to maintain a user privacy plan. Last May, Twitter paid a fine of $150 million for allegedly violating the settlement agreement. At the same time, FTC expanded the terms of the agreement, banning Twitter from using certain data to provide targeted ads and requiring it to provide specific security features.

Now, the focus of the investigation is whether Twitter has enough resources to protect users' privacy after Musk bought the social media company last year and fired thousands of employees. FTC sought a separate interview with Mr Musk about the investigation, but without success, according to people familiar with the matter.

In the past, it has been rare for corporate CEO to try to meet with the chairman of the FTC and the committee during the investigation. But sometimes such meetings are held when executives want to convince senior officials of the agency that they are determined to keep their commitments to the FTC. "if you think you can ignore it, it's not a very noteworthy issue, you ignore it," says William Kovacic, former chairman of FTC. "if you think it's important, that's the reason to ask for a meeting."

Spokesmen for Mr. Musk, Mr. Wilson and FTC declined to comment.

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