By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Elon Musk’s lawyers have sent a subpoena to Jack Dorsey, indicating that Twitter Inc.’s co-founder and former Chief Executive will be officially involved in the legal fight over Mr. Musk’s stalled $44 billion deal to acquire the social media giant.
Mr. Musk is seeking documents from Mr. Dorsey relating to the effect of false or spam accounts on the social-media platform’s business.
The Tesla Inc. CEO is also seeking information about Twitter’s use of monetizable daily active users, or MDAUs, as an important metric and any other metrics the company
Elon Musk has accused Twitter of lying about the number of bots on its platform.
Musk is attempting to back out of the proposed $64 billion merger agreement after accusing the company of misrepresenting the number of bot and spam accounts on the platform.
Twitter has accused Musk of using the bots as an excuse to get out of the deal after market conditions changed.
As part of the subpoena, Musk’s legal team is also seeking documents and communications related to Twitter’s use of monetisable daily active users (mDAU) “as a ‘Key Metric,’ as noted in Twitter’s SEC filings.”
In a prior response to Twitter’s lawsuit, Musk criticised the company’s use of the metric, claiming 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.
He also alleged that the measure is not actually as good an indicator of future performance as Twitter’s public filings imply.
The subpoena of Dorsey, one of several issued by Musk’s team and made public in court filings today, is the latest indication that the legal battle between the two parties is heating up.
Twitter previously subpoenaed a number of Musk’s associates, according to court filings and public statements.
The list includes several prominent investment firms and venture capitalists, some of whom are part of the so-called PayPal mafia, a group of influential figures in the tech industry who worked at the payment company cofounded by Musk.
Dorsey and Musk have a long billionaire bromance of sorts, and Dorsey initially signaled that he was supportive of Musk taking over the company he cofounded.
“In principle, I don’t believe anyone should own or run Twitter,” Dorsey tweeted in April.
“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 accepted the service of the subpoena.
The five-day trial between Twitter and Musk is scheduled to kick off in October
