Elon Musk Subpoenas Jack Dorsey Amid Twitter Lawsuit

Billionaire Elon Musk is continuing his ongoing legal battle with Twitter after previously announcing that he wanted to back out of his previous $44 billion dollar agreement to buy the company.

In a surprising twist, the Tesla CEO subpoenaed Twitter founder, former CEO, and possibly former friend, Jack Dorsey, in the ongoing legal battle between him and the social media giant.

As Deadline reported on Monday night, the SpaceX founder decided to subpoena Twitter founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey as subpoenas continue to fly on both sides.

Last month, Twitter made good on its word to sue Elon Musk after he said that he wanted to "terminate" the agreement that he made with the social media company back in April to buy the company for $54.20 per share. Although a one billion dollar "break-up fee" was written into the contract, Twitter claims that the clause doesn't apply in this case and is looking for a judge in Delaware Chancery Court to force Musk to go through with the $44 billion dollar deal.

For his part, Musk had given plenty of notice that he planned to back out of the deal, tweeting plenty of times that the deal was "on hold" as he continued to investigate the number of bot and spam accounts on the platform. He accused the company of not only fudging the numbers, but claimed that they failed to notify him when they laid off a number of key executives last month, which he says was part of their contract. Musk has filed his own countersuit against Twitter.

In the subpoena issued on August 22, former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is  “hereby commanded. all business and excuses being laid aside, to respond in writing to this subpoena and to produce for inspection and copying the books, documents, or tangible things in your possession, custody, or control” requested by Musk's team. He also has to turn over any information about the merger agreement and any documents “reflecting, referring to, or relating to the impact or effect of false or spam accounts on Twitter’s business and operations.”

In a court hearing in Delaware on July 19, Judge Kathaleen McMcormick set a five-day trial scheduled to take place in October. Twitter had originally asked for a hearing in September, while Musk's legal team argued that they needed to delay the trial until at least February 2023 to gather enough time to gather all necessary documents and information. Attorneys representing the social media company argued that a delay could cause the company "irreparable harm" and Judge McCormick agreed, scheduling a court date for October 2022.

Jack Dorsey stepped down as Twitter CEO last November but remained a director until May when his term expired. He has long been a close friend of Elon Musk and had publicly supported his takeover bid of Twitter. Before the deal had been negotiated, Musk had reportedly approached Dorsey and some other Twitter stockholders, including Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, about "contributing shares of common stock to retain an equity investment following the merger and taking the company private," as per Deadline.

On September 13, Twitter is holding a special shareholder meeting to vote on the merger, which is the last procedural step needed to close the deal, along with Musk's payment. Although he had previously tweeted that he was done selling shares of Tesla stock, the Tesla CEO recently sold off $6.9 billion dollars of shares in his electric car company, which might signal that he is preparing to go through with the deal after all.

Twitter's board, which approved the deal, is trying to get as many votes from shareholders ahead of the company meeting on September 13. According to Deadline, they said that the merger agreement “requires the affirmative vote of a majority of the outstanding shares, your vote is very important, regardless of the number of shares that you own.”

Their email continued: “Please help Twitter avoid the expense of additional solicitation by voting today. You may vote by telephone, via the Internet, or by signing, dating, and returning the hard-copy proxy card or voting instruction form. If you received this reminder by email you may also vote by simply clicking the 'VOTE NOW'  button in the accompanying email.”