Twitter: Elon Musk wins his first battle against the social network
The Delaware court has ordered Twitter to provide internal documents to Elon Musk so that he can calculate the proportion of fake accounts on the social network himself.
August 17, 2022
The victory is only partial - but it's a victory nonetheless. On Monday, August 15, the Delaware court ordered Twitter to "collect, evaluate and produce documents" on the social network's former chief product officer Kayvon Beykpour.
Elon Musk's lawyers had initially requested documents from 22 employees and "curators" of the firm - in order to verify the official data of the social network that the entrepreneur is trying to default on his $44 billion buyout offer.
Elon Musk will get documents on a former Twitter executive
Note that at this stage, the Twitter vs Elon Musk trial has not officially started. Indeed, the hearings will only start on October 17, 2022. Nevertheless, in the United States, lawyers for both parties are encouraged to meet beforehand and find common ground.
If the two sides reach an agreement before October 17, there will be no need to go before a judge. Nevertheless, the offensive posture of Elon Musk's lawyers risks complicating the resolution of this conflict out of court.
Indeed, they seek nothing less than to challenge each of Twitter's arguments to better enable Elon Musk to get out of the sales contract he signed. In addition, the entrepreneur's lawyers have filed a separate motion seeking more data on Twitter's users and the social network's analytics methods.
But the core of the dispute remains the same: Twitter claims that the proportion of fake or spam accounts does not exceed 5% of the site's users. While Elon Musk claims that this proportion is much higher.
Kayvon Beykpour was initially supposed to launch new tools on the social network, such as Super Follows, live listening rooms called Spaces and newsletters called Revue. However, on May 12, Parag Argawal decided to sack Kayvon Beykpour "after notifying [the latter] that he wanted to take the social network in another direction," explains the person concerned in a post.
By obtaining confidential documents from this ex-employee, Elon Musk's lawyers could weaken the position of Twitter. It remains to be seen if this strategy will actually work...