Twitter and Elon Musk sparred in court, each looking for evidence to win a high-stakes trial next month over the billionaire’s bid to break his buyout agreement.
Musk has been looking for evidence to back up his claim that Twitter misled regulators and investors about the percentage of accounts that are actually spam or software “bots,” as well as its key growth metrics.
Twitter, which has sued Musk to compel him to complete the US$44 billion (RM203.5bil) buyout deal, is looking for evidence or testimony that he is making up reasons to walk away because he changed his mind.
A Twitter attorney told the judge that it was difficult to obtain documents from data scientists Musk used to estimate the percentage of fake accounts on the social network, and that what they did obtain did not support Musk’s claim that it was much higher than 5%.
Attorney Brad Wilson claimed that when it comes to what Musk learned from data scientists who studied Twitter data, Twitter has experienced a “pattern of delay and obfuscation.”
Musk’s lawyers, for their part, asked the judge to order Twitter to turn over more messages or other information, particularly about “monetizable daily active users” and “user active minutes.”
The hearing took place during a discovery phase in which opposing parties seek documents, emails, depositions, and other evidence to support their claims.
Musk, the world’s richest man, said in an April letter that he was canceling the deal because Twitter misled him about the number of bot accounts on its platform, allegations that the company denied.
He later added allegations made in a whistleblower complaint by a former Twitter head of security to his list of reasons for pulling out of the deal.
Twitter has maintained its user-count estimate and portrayed the whistleblower as a “disgruntled former employee” whose claims are without merit.
