Elon Musk (pictured) reportedly looked to delay his trial with Twitter by a month after a former employee turned whistle-blower recently alleged the social media company did not prioritise removing spam and bot accounts.

Reuters cited a court filing that stated Musk was attempting to move the five-day trial from 17 October, when it is due to begin, to November.

Peiter Zatko, Twitter’s former head of security, alerted politicians and regulators he was told by the head of site integrity in early 2021 the company did not know how many bots and spam accounts were on the platform.

Musk has repeatedly cited what he claimed were the large number of spam accounts on Twitter as the primary reason for walking away from the $44 billion deal to buy the company.

The billionaire’s legal team also filed a motion to amend his complaint based on the whistle-blower allegations in a sealed court filing.

Twitter sued Musk in an attempt to force through his proposed takeover, arguing he had refused to honour his obligations.

Musk’s lawyers previously claimed Twitter breached multiple provisions of the deal struck in April.