Elon Musk Subpoenas Twitter Founder Jack Dorsey As Legal Dispute Over $44BN Purchase Continues

Read Time:3 Minute, 42 Second

Elon Musk has sued his friend and former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey amid the ongoing legal battle over his $44 billion takeover of the social network.

Musk’s legal team is likely seeking support from Dorsey — the ultimate Twitter insider who ran the company for eight years — for arguing that the platform hasn’t been fair about the number of bots and fake accounts among its 238 million daily active users.

Dorsey co-founded Twitter in 2006 and reportedly grew close to Musk, urging him to buy the company and take it private. He retired from running the company for the second time last November and handed over the role to current CEO Parag Agrawal.

Musk’s legal team likely seeks support from Dorsey – the ultimate Twitter insider who ran the company for eight years

According to the subpoena, Dorsey is being asked for documents related to “the impact or effect of fake or spam accounts on Twitter’s business and activities, Twitter’s use of mDAU as an important metric” and other information

According to the subpoena, Dorsey is being asked to provide documents related to “the impact or effect of fake or spam accounts on Twitter’s operations and activities, Twitter’s use of mDAU as a key metric” and “any process or workflow, other than the mDAU Audit and the suspension workflow that Twitter uses, has used, discussed or considered detecting and labeling accounts as spam or fake.”

When reached by DailyMail.com, a Twitter representative said they had “nothing to add.”

In April, shortly after Musk initially struck a deal to buy Twitter, Dorsey said“Basically, I don’t think anyone should own or run Twitter. It wants to be a public good at the protocol level, not a business. However, Elon solves the problem of being a company and is the only solution I trust. I trust in his mission to expand the light of consciousness.”

“Elon’s goal of creating a platform that is ‘maximally trusted and broadly inclusive’ is the right one,” Dorsey wrote. This is also @paraga’s goal and why I chose him. Thank you both for getting the company out of an impossible situation. This is the right way … I believe it with all my heart.’

Three weeks ago, Twitter subpoenaed information about a wide range of Musk’s inner circle, including investors Chamath Palihapitiya, David Sacks, Steve Jurvetson, Marc Andreessen, Jason Calacanis, Keith Rabois and Joe Lonsdale.

Musk’s lawyers have reportedly sought information from a range of mid-sized employees and senior executives about Twitter’s user data and how it was collected and analyzed. Twitter’s stock price is trading much lower than when Musk first offered to buy it

That was ahead of Musk’s bid to pull out of the deal over concerns over Twitter, which claimed only 5 percent of its daily active users are bots.

Judge Kathaleen McCormick, who oversees the case in the Delaware Court of Chancery, recently ruled that Musk’s team has access to information from former Twitter product head Kayvon Beykpour.

According to Search alphaboth sides have expanded their list of subpoenas to include a cast of characters, such as “Holocene Advisors, DE Shaw and Discord – probably part of Musk trying to get their hands on messages about the deal (along with searching for documents from Signal and iMessage).”

Musk’s lawyers have reportedly sought information from a range of mid-sized employees and senior executives about Twitter’s user data and how it was collected and analyzed.

Analysts said Twitter is likely trying to find evidence that Musk made private statements that contradicted his public position that the company’s problems with fake accounts made the acquisition untenable.

For example, if Musk hypothetically downplayed the bot issue when he sought financial backing for the deal, or revealed to confidants that he had other reasons to pull out of the acquisition, that would bolster Twitter’s case.

This back-and-forth legal wrangle is expected to continue ahead of a 5-day trial in Delaware beginning October 17.

The trial will determine whether Musk will be forced to go through with his planned takeover of the company or whether he can walk away from the deal.