Elon Musk Subpoenas Twitter Co-Founder Jack Dorsey, Seeking Documents About Bots and Fake Accounts

variety.com:

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorElon Musk, in a new bid to bolster the claim that he has the right to walk away from his $44 billion bid for Twitter, issued a subpoena to Jack Dorsey, co-founder and former CEO of Twitter.Through the subpoena, revealed Monday in a court filing, the world’s richest individual is hoping to turn up evidence that Dorsey may possess about how the social company has measured bot and spam accounts.Musk and Twitter are locked in a legal battle, playing out in Delaware Chancery Court, in which Twitter is seeking to hold Musk to the original buyout terms.

Musk has argued in legal filings that Twitter has made “false and misleading representations” — including about the extent of fake and spam accounts on the service — which represented a material breach negating the pact.

In the subpoena issued to Dorsey, disclosed Monday, Musk’s lawyers requested all documents and communications related to the tech billionaire’s deal buy Twitter as well as documents “reflecting, referring to, or relating to the impact or effect of false or spam accounts on Twitter’s business and operations,” dating back to January 2019.The subpoena also seeks information pertaining to Twitter’s use of monetizable daily active users (mDAU) — a proprietary metric the company introduced with its Q4 2018 results — “as a ‘Key Metric,’ as noted in Twitter’s SEC filings.” Musk has criticized Twitter’s use of the mDAU metric, alleging that it doesn’t accurately reflect the advertising revenue generated from the social network’s user bsae.Dorsey stepped down as CEO of Twitter in November 2021, after more than six years at the helm.