Public filings show Musk’s lawyers are demanding documents and communications from former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey about how Twitter recognizes, identifies and counts fake accounts and how the company uses active users as a key measure of its finances on a daily basis.
Twitter is suing Tesla CEO Elon Musk for backtracking on his decision to buy the company for US$44 billion. Backing out of his earlier decision to take over Twitter, Musk said that Twitter was not willing to talk about the number of bots and spam among daily active users on the platform.
Musk said Twitter had tried to “mislead investors” by giving false numbers in financial filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
As part of the lawsuit, both Twitter and Musk’s lawyers have filed dozens of subpoenas asking banks, investment firms, executives and high-profile Silicon Valley figures for information and communications about the deal.
Twitter defended its original position on bot accuracy, saying the numbers were correct and Musk’s team had spent months trying to verify the accuracy but found nothing.
Twitter also said Musk’s push to take over the company ran out of steam contradicting the legal arguments coming from Elon Musk.
The sources for this piece include an article in NPR.