Elon Musk's lawyers seized on the revelations of a Twitter whistleblower on Wednesday, attempting to force the platform to hand over vast amounts of information in their fight to cancel the billionaire's buyout bid.

The Tesla CEO's team told a US judge that the former Twitter security chief's allegations of major security flaws and questionable practices had bolstered their case, which had been stalled in court.

Musk attempted to back out of the $44 billion deal by claiming Twitter misled him about the number of false or spam accounts, prompting strong denials and a lawsuit from the social media company.

Read next: Twitter calls bluff on Musk's reasons for backing out of merger

In a 90-minute hearing on what data the firm should be forced to hand over ahead of their October trial, Musk attorney Alex Spiro repeatedly cited Twitter whistleblower Peiter Zatko.

"The way Mr. Zatko puts it, management had no appetite to properly measure the prevalence of bot accounts," Spiro told Judge Kathaleen McCormick in a court in the eastern state of Delaware.

Twitter won some early battles in the case, including a quick trial date, and its stock had risen as analysts predicted the platform would triumph over the volatile billionaire. Nonetheless, Musk's attorneys have used Zatko's whistleblower complaint to US authorities, which surfaced on Tuesday, to try to gain momentum in the case.

'They want a do-over' 

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Spiro attempted to persuade the judge to order Twitter to turn over billions of "data points", including user phone numbers and locations, arguing that the information is required to prove Twitter was deceptive about spam accounts.

Twitter lawyer Bradley Wilson responded that the company had deceived no one and that Musk wants a "do-over" on questions he should have asked before making his unsolicited buyout offer earlier this year.

Read next: Twitter to pay $150m to settle claims of users’ data misuse

While Twitter has pointed out that Musk did not perform the typical due diligence seen in merger deals, Spiro told the judge that the billionaire relied on the firm's SEC filings (SEC).

The market regulator was one of the recipients of Zatko's complaint, which accuses Twitter of making false statements about account numbers because "accurate measurements would harm the company's image and valuation."

It was unclear whether the complaint and its use by Musk's lawyers would alter the course of the case.

The judge has yet to rule on Musk's attorneys' data requests, and Zatko's impact may become clearer after his scheduled testimony before US lawmakers on September 13.

Read next: Musk subpoenas former Twitter CEO Dorsey

Twitter opposes handing over certain types of data for a variety of reasons, including the risk of violating user privacy, which is protected by law, according to its attorney Wilson. "They want a do-over; they want to recount the spam," he said of Musk's team.

"They want to get all of the information that the reviewers had so that they can have their experts, I presume, do a count of their own and see if they can come up with a different number."

Even if Musk's experts reach a different conclusion about the number of spam accounts on Twitter, the breach would not be significant enough to allow Musk to breach the buyout contract, according to Twitter attorneys.