Twitter Legal War Rages On: Elon Musk Subpoenas Former CEO Jack Dorsey

 As Elon Musk continues his ongoing legal battle with Twitter over his decision to back out of his $44 billion acquisition of the company, Musk’s legal team has submitted a subpoena for evidence from former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.

The Verge reports that as the legal battle between Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Twitter continues over his refusal to follow through on his $44 billion acquisition of the company, Musk’s legal team has issued a subpoena to former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.

Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey (Photo by David Becker/Getty Images)

Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Free speech failure Dorsey stepped down from the position in November, naming Parag Agrawal as his successor. Since then, Dorsey has been running his other venture Block (formerly known as Square), and has encouraged Musk’s purchase of Twitter. Musk’s legal team is calling in anyone it thinks may back up its argument that the company is lying about the measurements of bots and spam among the daily active users on the platform.

The subpoena lists all of the information that Dorsey is being asked for, including:

1. Documents and Communications regarding the Merger and the transaction contemplated by the Merger, the Merger Agreement, any potential acquisition or transaction between Defendants and Twitter, Defendants’ potential or actual acquisition of shares of Twitter common stock, Defendants’ potential membership on the Twitter Board, and Documents and Communications otherwise regarding Twitter and any of Defendants.

2. Documents and Communications reflecting, referring to, or relating to the impact or effect of false or spam accounts on Twitter’s business and operations.

3. Documents and Communications reflecting, referring to, or relating to Twitter’s use of mDAU as a “Key Metric,” as noted in Twitter’s SEC filings, including Documents and Communications reflecting, referring to, or relating to the relationship between mDAU and Twitter’s present or future revenue or EBITDA.

4. Documents and Communications reflecting, referring to, or relating to Twitter’s use of any other user metric other than mDAU, including but not limited to, daily active users, monthly active users, daily user engagement, monthly user engagement, or advertisement engagements.

5. Documents and Communications describing any process or workflow, other than the mDAU Audit and the suspension workflow, that Twitter uses, has used, or has discussed or considered using to detect and label accounts as spam or false.

6. Documents reflecting business plans or analyses for achieving mDAU targets.

7. Documents and Communications relating to incorporating mDAU into executive or director compensation, including but not limited to any annual compensation targets, bonus pools, incentive plans, or performance-based restricted stock units.

Musk’s team was also recently cleared by Judge Kathaleen McCormick to subpoena Twitter’s former head of product Kayvon Beykpour and another fired exec, Bruce Falck. Both were fired on the same day by new CEO Parag Agrawal.

Twitter’s former head of security, Peiter Zatko, a widely known hacker who went by the screen name “Mudge,” has come forward with a whistleblower complaint alleging that the company’s management misled federal regulators and the company’s board of directors about “extreme, egregious deficiencies.” Zatko was fired by Twitter in January, just months after Jack Dorsey stepped down as CEO. His allegations could play a role in the upcoming lawsuit.

Zatko depicts Twitter as a chaotic and directionless company plagued by infighting and unable to protect its users. One of the most serious allegations is that the company violated the terms of an 11-year-old settlement with the Federal Trade Commission by falsely claiming that it had a solid and defined security plan.

Zatko claims that he warned colleagues that half the company’s servers were operating on out-of-date and vulnerable software with multiple security bugs. Zatko alleges that executives withheld important facts about the number of breaches the company faces and the lack of protection of user data, instead showing directors charts measuring unimportant changes and positive metrics.