US newspaper The Washington Post reports a former executive at Twitter has alleged that the social networking giant intentionally underestimated the prevalence of fake accounts to pad the overall number of users.

Peiter Zatko was fired as Twitter's security chief this year.

The Washington Post obtained a copy of a whistleblower complaint Zatko filed last month with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Department of Justice, and the Federal Trade Commission.

The complaint alleges that Twitter prioritized user growth over cutting "spam bots," computer programs that tweet automatically.
It claims executives were paid bonuses for increasing the number of users, but there were no rewards for reducing spam.

The complaint also accuses Twitter of lax data security.

Twitter is in a legal battle with Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who withdrew his bid to acquire the social media company because of doubts over its explanation about the prevalence of fake accounts.

Twitter has denied the allegations outlined in the complaint, calling it "riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies," and "presented without important context."