Musk gets wish as judge orders Twitter to share former executive’s documents

Tesla CEO Elon Musk appears to have scored a small victory in his ongoing legal battle against Twitter over whether he must complete his $44 billion acquisition of the social media company.

Delaware Court of Chancery judge Kathleen McCormick on Monday, August 15, ordered Twitter to share a former executive’s documents after multiple requests from Musk’s camp to get more information about how the company handles fake accounts, Reuters and Business Insider report.

The executive in question is Twitter’s former general manager of consumer product Kayvon Beykpour, who Musk claims is a key figure in providing him the information he needs. Beykpour joined Twitter in 2018 when the company was still being led by then-CEO Jack Dorsey. But he and a number of executives were fired from the company in May under Dorsey’s successor Parag Agrawal.

“The truth is that this isn’t how and when I imagined leaving Twitter, and this wasn’t my decision,” Beykpour previously tweeted. “Parag asked me to leave after letting me know that he wants to take the team in a different direction.”

Musk’s lawyers reportedly requested documents from 22 Twitter employees, but judge McCormick only approved the one for Beykpour. As to whether the former executive has all the information Musk needs is still unclear, though he’s believed to be the best one to share more about the bots on Twitter, having worked for the company for several years.

Musk, who is the richest man in the world, cited Twitter’s alleged failure to disclose the number of fake accounts on the platform as among the reasons he wanted to terminate his initial bid to buyout the company.

He took Twitter to court over its alleged misrepresentation of the number of active human users on the platform amid the negotiations. Twitter has denied the allegations and filed its own complaint against Musk, accusing him of breaching his agreement to the buyout. – Rappler.com