Lawyers for Elon Musk and Twitter squabbled in court on Wednesday over the key issue of the fake accounts, highlighting potential lines of contention for the trial over whether the Tesla boss can be forced to complete his $44 billion takeover bid.
Musk attorney Alex Spiro tried to convince a U.S. judge to order Twitter to hand over billions of “data points,” including user phone numbers and locations, arguing that the information was needed to prove that Twitter was investors and deceived regulators via spam accounts.
Twitter attorney Bradley Wilson countered that the company hadn’t deceived anyone and that Musk wanted an “overtake” on questions he should have asked before making his unsolicited takeover bid earlier this year.
The hearing before Judge Kathaleen McCormick in the Delaware Court of Chancery comes as the rival sides seek records, news and more that could be used as ammunition in the trial.
“We have seen slide after slide of documents that have not been presented to the court on this motion – to which Twitter has not been given a fair opportunity to respond – which I believe previews Mr Spiros’ final argument in this case is. ‘ said Wilson.
While Twitter has pointed out that Musk has opted out of due diligence typically associated with merger deals, Spiro told the judge that the billionaire trusts the company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Spiro argued that Twitter invented a “monetizable daily active user” category that it shared publicly to give the impression that the company was doing well, while other internal data suggested otherwise.
“Twitter has developed its own metric,” Spiro told the judge. “They changed the game, invented their own currency.”
Wilson said the company made it clear in its filings that Twitter’s user counts and fake accounts were estimates.
The lawyer argued that Twitter refuses to share certain types of data for reasons that could violate the legally protected privacy of users, among other reasons.
“They want a replay, they want to tell the spam,” Wilson said of Musk’s team.
“They want to get all the information that the reviewers had so their experts, I assume, can do their own count and see if they come up with another number.”
Even if Musk’s experts came to a different conclusion about the number of spam accounts on Twitter, it wouldn’t be a violation serious enough to breach the acquisition agreement, Twitter lawyers argue.
Referring to Musk’s public statements, Wilson urged the judge to keep in mind who is asking to be trusted with all of that Twitter data.
“This is someone who has publicly mocked Twitter for trying to enforce a non-disclosure agreement,” Wilson said of Musk.
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