Elon Musk subpoenas former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey – TechCrunch
Elon Musk’s legal team has subpoenaed former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, marking the latest development in the legal battle over Musk’s attempt to break his $44 billion acquisition agreement with the social network company. Dorsey will be asked about the impact of bots and spam accounts on Twitter’s business and operations.
Dorsey stepped down as Twitter CEO last November and handed the role over to current Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal. Dorsey has displayed his support for Musk in the past, and previously tweeted that he believes the Tesla CEO is the “singular solution” he trusts to operate the company he co-founded.
Last week, Musk’s legal team subpoenaed Kayvon Beykpour, Twitter’s former head of consumer product, and Bruce Falck, who was Twitter’s former revenue and product lead. The two were ousted in May by Agrawal amid buyout turmoil.
Twitter’s bid to get Elon Musk to follow through with his multibillion-dollar bid to acquire the social network will officially go to trial on October 17, a Delaware judge confirmed last month. Although Musk initially wanted to delay a trial until next February, a judge recently ruled that Twitter could accelerate proceedings to October of this year.
The ongoing saga has seen many twists since Twitter accepted Elon Musk’s $44 billion offer back in April and after he decided he didn’t want to buy Twitter after all, citing a lack of clarity on Twitter’s bot data. Musk claims Twitter wasn’t honest with him about how much of its customer base is made up of spam and robot accounts. Twitter, on the other hand, has been pushing to force the deal to close through legal action. As part of its second-quarter earnings report last month, Twitter revealed that it had spent $33 million during the previous quarter on the pending acquisition.
Musk countersued the social network, after which Twitter responded with a 127-page document refuting Musk’s claims. The social network noted in the filing that the counterclaims “fail to justify Musk’s plan to dishonor the merger agreement,” and argued that they are an effort on Musk’s part to escape the agreement.
