The battle between social media platform Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) and Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk continues to heat up: Musk has subpoenaed former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey ahead of the Oct. 17 trial scheduled to decide whether Musk will be forced to acquire Twitter at an original purchase price of $44 billion.
What Happened: Musk’s legal team has subpoenaed Dorsey ahead of the trial. The latest subpoena comes as Musk continues an argument that Twitter has lied about the amount of bots and spam accounts it has in its daily active user measurements.
“You are requested to produce all documents described below which are in your possession, custody, or control or are otherwise available to you,” the subpoena says, as shared by The Verge.
Requested as part of the subpoena are:
- Documents and communications regarding the merger
- Documents and communications related to the impact of false or spam accounts on Twitter’s business
- Documents and communications referring to monetizable daily active users for Twitter
- Documents and communications related to mDAU measures used to detect spam accounts
- Documents related to business plans for mDAU targets
- Documents and communications related to executive compensation related to mDAUs
Related Link: Twitter Sues Elon Musk, How Chuck Norris, Memes, Poop Emojis And Texts Play A Role In A Major Court Case
Why It’s Important: Dorsey is the co-founder and former CEO of Twitter. Dorsey served as CEO of the company on two occasions, most recently leading the company from 2015 to 2021 before handing control over to current CEO Parag Agrawal.
The subpoena comes as Musk scored a potential small victory in Judge Kathaleen McCormick giving Musk and his legal team access to information from Twitter’s former head of product Kayvon Beykpour.
Dorsey previously tweeted support for Musk buying Twitter and joining the board of directors.
“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. Solving for the problem of it being a company however, Elon is the singular solution I trust,” Dorsey tweeted.
Musk has posted praise of Dorsey since announcing the acquisition.
“I’m a fan of Jack btw. Wish he would stay on the board, but I understand that he needs to move on,” Musk tweeted.
The subpoena comes after Twitter sued Musk to force the deal to go through and Musk counter-sued. The battle could go back and forth up to the court date with, Twitter requesting information from friends of Musk including Chamath Palihapitiya, David Sacks, Joe Lonsdale, Steve Jurvetson, Marc Andreessen, Jason Calacanis and Keith Rabois.
TWTR Price Action: Twitter shares are down 2.17% at $43.04 Monday.
Photo via Shutterstock.
