Elon Musk Subpoenas Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey Before the Trial

Elon Musk has launched legal action to summon Jack Dorsey to appear in court as part of his legal battle with the Twitter.

Elon Musk is leaving no stone unturned to ensure that he wins the lawsuit against Twitter in which the company is forcing the billionaire to move forward with the US$ 64 billion acquisition deal. The latest move involves sending a subpoena to former Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey.

The subpoena was made public in court filings today. According to it, Musk’s legal team is seeking a wide range of information from Dorsey. The former Twitter boss stepped down last November and remained on the board until late May. He left a month after Twitter agreed to sell itself to the Tesla CEO.

 

Musk’s legal team now wants all documents and communications regarding the merger agreement. It also seeks communications and documents “reflecting, referring to, or relating to the impact or effect of false or spam accounts on Twitter’s business and operations.”

 

Musk tried to back out of the proposed US$ 64 billion merger agreement after it accused Twitter of misrepresenting the number of bot and spam accounts that were present on the platform. As part of the subpoena, the entrepreneur’s legal team is also seeking documents and communications that are related to Twitter’s use of monetizable daily active users (mDAU) “as a ‘Key Metric,’ as noted in Twitter’s SEC filings.

When previously responding to Twitter’s lawsuit, Musk criticised the use of the metric. He claimed that his evaluations show only a small portion of the users Twitter considers mDAU actually generate significant revenue for the company by viewing and engaging with advertisements. Musk also alleged that the measure is not as good an indicator of future performance as the company’s public filings imply.

 

The subpoena of Dorsey is among several other subpoenas issued by Musk’s team. It clearly indicates that the legal battle between Musk and Twitter is heating up.

Twitter has already subpoenaed several of Musk’s associates. The list includes many prominent investment firms and venture capitalists.

 

The move to subpoena Dorsey seems smart as he and Musk have had a long billionaire bromance of sorts. In fact, Dorsey initially signalled that he supported Musk taking over the company he co-founded. In April, he tweeted, “In principle, I don’t believe anyone should own or run Twitter. 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.”

Court filings indicated Dorsey had accepted the service of the subpoena. The five-day trial between Musk and Twitter will actually take place in October.

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