The legal team representing Elon Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO, has officially subpoenaed Jack Dorsey, the former CEO of Twitter, into the raging battle over the social media platform.
Musk, who previously put forth a proposal earlier this year to buy out the entirety of Twitter for a price of $44 billion, has made the argument that the company’s disclosed number of spam or false accounts is wholly inaccurate — which could number as high as 33% instead of the 5% that was reported by Twitter. A lower number of actual monetizable daily active users (mDAU) than the figure that was reported by Twitter could end up calling for a lowering of Twitter’s valuation.
This possible difference has locked the entrepreneur into a pitched legal battle, with Twitter attempting to force through the finalization of the deal and Musk calling for the termination of the deal. As of writing, the trial to determine an outcome is slated to take place this coming October.
Due to the ongoing legal battle, Musk has officially started the process of subpoenaing former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who resigned at the end of this past year and was quickly replaced by Parag Agrawal, Twitter’s CTO, over a series of documents in relation to “the impact or effect of false or spam accounts on Twitter’s business and operations, Twitter’s use of mDAU as a Key Metric.” This subpoena also called for Dorsey to provide “any process or workflow, other than the mDAU Audit and the suspension workflow, that Twitter uses, has used, or has discussed or considered using to detect and label accounts as spam or false,” as seen from court documents obtained by The Verge.
The legal team for Musk, who wanted to buy out Twitter for the stated purpose of increasing its commitment to free speech, has made the argument that the company has repeatedly outright failed to provide any accurate information about the composition of its user base, which precludes the possibility of a complete deal.
“Mr. Musk and his financial advisors at Morgan Stanley have been requesting critical information from Twitter as far back as May 9, 2022 — and repeatedly since then — on the relationship between Twitter’s disclosed mDAU figures and the prevalence of false or spam accounts on the platform,” stated the attorneys last month. “Notwithstanding these repeated requests over the past two months, Twitter has still failed to provide much of the data and information responsive to Mr. Musk’s repeated requests.”
The suit from Twitter makes the claim that Musk must go through with and complete the deal. “Musk refuses to honor his obligations to Twitter and its stockholders because the deal he signed no longer serves his personal interests,” claimed the lawsuit. “Musk apparently believes that he — unlike every other party subject to Delaware contract law — is free to change his mind, trash the company, disrupt its operations, destroy stockholder value, and walk away.”
Historically, Musk and Dorsey have been quite friendly, even making an appearance at a bitcoin event together last summer. In the same vein, Dorsey approved of Musk trying to buy out Twitter. “In principle, I don’t believe anyone should own or run Twitter. It wants to be a public good at a protocol level, not a company,” expressed Dorsey. “Solving for the problem of it being a company, however, Elon is the singular solution I trust. I trust his mission to extend the light of consciousness.”