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Elon Musk subpoenas former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey

Elon Musk subpoenas former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey

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Dorsey joins the battle

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Elon Musk shrugging on a background with the Twitter logo
Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images

As Twitter and Elon Musk prepare for their October 17th trial date in the Delaware Court of Chancery to argue over his attempt to break their $44 billion acquisition agreement, Musk’s legal team submitted a subpoena for evidence from a familiar face: former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.

Dorsey stepped down as Twitter CEO for the second time last November and handed control of the company he helped create to Parag Agrawal. He’s running Square and Block and, reportedly, egging on Musk’s attempt to buy Twitter in private messages.

It’s tough to say what information Dorsey has that Musk couldn’t obtain by just texting him! But with billions of dollars on the line, Musk’s legal team is casting out all lines to support his (weak) argument the company is not telling the truth about measurements of bots and spam among the daily active users on its platform. The subpoena lists what information Dorsey is being asked for:

1. Documents and Communications regarding the Merger and the transaction contemplated by the Merger, the Merger Agreement, any potential acquisition or transaction between Defendants and Twitter, Defendants’ potential or actual acquisition of shares of Twitter common stock, Defendants’ potential membership on the Twitter Board, and Documents and Communications otherwise regarding Twitter and any of Defendants.

2. Documents and Communications reflecting, referring to, or relating to the impact or effect of false or spam accounts on Twitter’s business and operations.

3. Documents and Communications reflecting, referring to, or relating to Twitter’s use of mDAU as a “Key Metric,” as noted in Twitter’s SEC filings, including Documents and Communications reflecting, referring to, or relating to the relationship between mDAU and Twitter’s present or future revenue or EBITDA.

4. Documents and Communications reflecting, referring to, or relating to Twitter’s use of any other user metric other than mDAU, including but not limited to, daily active users, monthly active users, daily user engagement, monthly user engagement, or advertisement engagements.

5. Documents and Communications describing any process or workflow, other than the mDAU Audit and the suspension workflow, that Twitter uses, has used, or has discussed or considered using to detect and label accounts as spam or false.

6. Documents reflecting business plans or analyses for achieving mDAU targets.

7. Documents and Communications relating to incorporating mDAU into executive or director compensation, including but not limited to any annual compensation targets, bonus pools, incentive plans, or performance-based restricted stock units.

A recent ruling by Judge Kathaleen McCormick also gave Musk’s team access to information from the former Twitter head of product Kayvon Beykpour, and in a separate filing today, Musk’s team subpoenaed the other Twitter exec Agrawal fired on the same day as Beykpour, Bruce Falck.