Elon Musk’s texts have been revealed to the public in the court discovery process showing all the big names who texted him to encourage his acquisition of Twitter.
Key Details
- As the trial date for Twitter and Elon Musk draws near more things are being revealed each day. This time—Musk’s text messages.
- Here are some of the big names that pop up in the long list of text messages:
- Jack Dorsey – Twitter founder. “I tried my hardest to get you on our board, and the board said no,” he said. “That’s about the time I decided I need to work to leave, as hard as it was for me.”
- Larry Ellison – Chair and CTO of Oracle. When asked how much money he wanted to put into the Twitter deal he responded, “A billion … or whatever you recommend,” Musk recommended $2 billion.and Ellison responded, “Since you think I should come in for at least $2B … I’m in for $2B.”
- Sam Bankman-Fried – Founder of crypto exchange FTX
- Mathias Döpfner – CEO of Axel Springer which owns owns Business Insider and Politico
- Joe Lonsdale – Palantir co-founder
- Joe Rogan – Podcaster. “I REALLY hope you get Twitter,” he texted Musk. “If you do, we should throw a hell of a party.”
- Gayle King – Journalist
- Justin Roiland – Co-creator of cartoon series Rick and Morty
- Marc Merill – Founder of Riot Games
- The messages were revealed as part of the pretrial process as Twitter takes Musk to court.
Why it’s news
The battle between Elon Musk and Twitter has been ongoing for months and the trial is finally rounding the corner.
Musk is scheduled to be deposed by Twitter’s lawyers on October 6 and 7, with the five-day trial starting on October 17.
As part of a pretrial delivery process Musk’s text messages have been revealed to the public and many big names are on the list of people who showed him support when he was attempting to buy Twitter.
The text messages cover a period from January to mid-June. That time frame includes the initial revelation that Musk had acquired a sizable stake in Twitter (April 4), the announcement by CEO Parag Agrawal that Musk would be joining the board (April 5), the later announcement that Musk had declined a board seat (April 10), Musk’s offer to buy the company (April 14), and Twitter’s acceptance of that offer (April 25), according to Fortune writer, Nicholas Gordon.
Many other people reached out to Musk via text as news of his interest in the social media platform became public.
Backing up a bit
The timeline between Elon Musk and Twitter is a lengthy one.
In April, Elon Musk announced that he held a 9.2% stake in Twitter, which made him the social-media company’s largest shareholder. Twitter’s stock price soared 25% after the announcement.
Later that month, the billionaire entrepreneur offered to buy all of Twitter at $54.20 per share—equaling about $44 billion. He said he originally invested in the platform because he believes it is failing in its potential to be the leading platform for free speech around the globe. In fact, he asked his 2 million followers if Twitter adhered to principles of free speech, and 70% said “no.”
Last month, Musk decided to back out of the deal, claiming there were too many fake accounts on the platform. Twitter has since sued Musk in Delaware Court of Chancery to complete the deal and requested the trial to take place in September. Musk, on the other hand, wanted to delay the trial until February 2023, stating that a case of this size takes time to prepare. Twitter was granted its wish of an expedited trial, with Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick, the presiding judge, setting a five-day trial for October. Musk then countersued Twitter, stating his reason for the termination was due to Twitter not being upfront about the number of fake accounts on the platform.Then, Elon Musk and his legal team subpoenaed Twitter’s founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey, to get him to release documents that provide accurate information on bots and spam accounts on the social-media platform and now these documents have come out from Zatko and Musk and his lawyers have subpoenaed him as well.
