The twists and turns in the battle between Elon Musk and Twitter continue.
Twitter subpoenaed Oracle founder Larry Ellison in its legal battle to make Elon Musk complete his proposed $44-billion purchase of the social media company, according to Bloomberg.
Last week, Twitter subpoenaed an official of a trust Ellison controls that committed $1 billion to Musk’s proposed buyout. Now the company has notified Delaware Chancery Court that it has subpoenaed Ellison himself.
The company’s lawyers are demanding Ellison Trust representative Philip Simon hand over details of the entity’s involvement in the now-teetering transaction, according to court filings Friday. Twitter has requested information from more than a dozen people or investment firms that committed equity to Musk’s purchase as well as the banks that advised Musk and pledged billions in financing.
Twitter’s legal team wants Simon and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen to turn over “documents and communications” about their intentions to invest in the deal and all information about arrangements for “equity co-investments,” the filings show.
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 percent 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 percent 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 has since countersued Twitter. He said in a countersuit made public last Thursday that he decided to terminate the merger agreement after learning of what he described as troubling facts, including a restatement of Twitter’s monetizable daily average users days after the pact was signed and that Twitter was allegedly miscounting the number of false and spam accounts, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Both sides are seeking information to make their case ahead of the October 17 trial. Musk claims he canceled the deal because Twitter failed to provide him with information about the number of spam and bot accounts on the platform. Twitter says his bot complaints were a pretext for him to walk away.
