A legal filing has revealed that part of Twitter’s source code, the underpinning computer code that powers the social network, was leaked online.

New York Times reports that the incident, which is a rare occurrence, was a significant exposure of Twitter’s intellectual property.

The source code leak came at a time when the company was working to resolve technical issues and turn around its financial fortunes under Elon Musk.

According to the filing, Twitter took action on Friday to have the leaked code removed by notifying GitHub, an online community for software developers where the code was posted.

However, GitHub adhered to Twitter’s request, taking down the code and was clear how long the leaked code had been accessible online, but reports detail that the code had been public for months.

The microblogging service additionally requested that the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ordered GitHub to disclose the identity of the person who shared the code.

Sources familiar with the matter told New York Times that executives handling the case have concluded that whoever was responsible for the leak left the San Francisco-based company last year.

About 75 per cent of Twitter’s 7,500 employees have been let go since Mr Musk’s $44 billion Twitter takeover in October 2022.

The sources claimed that the executives were only recently made aware of the source code leak.

One issue is that the code has security flaws that could allow hackers or other determined individuals to steal user data or bring the website to an end, they claimed