Twitter and Elon Musk are sparring ahead of a much-anticipated trial that could determine whether the Tesla CEO will be forced to buy the social media company.
The two parties argued pre-trial discovery motions on Tuesday, with Musk's lawyers asking for more information on monetizable daily active users and the amount of time spent by users on the platform. In counter arguments, Twitter's legal team said Musk's accusations that the number of bots were much higher than the company claimed were hard to prove from the data his team provided.
Both Twitter CEO Parag Agriwal and Elon Musk were expected to be deposed on Monday, but the interviews were rescheduled, according to The Wall Street Journal. Shares of the company moved up 5 percent on the intraday charts on the news.
Musk initially agreed to buy Twitter in April for $44 billion but backed out of the deal in July after he claimed the company was not truthful about the number of real users on its platform. Twitter has claimed that only 5 percent of its users are fake.
Twitter sued Musk for pulling out of the agreement, which would put him on the hook for $1 billion. However, the world's richest man, according to Forbes' latest list, has said the company was defrauding investors and being untruthful when he made his initial bid so he should not have to pay.
"Unless he can prove that there was a material adverse effect of this information on the agreement, it's probably unlikely that he's going to prevail," legal analyst Tracy A. Pearson told Cheddar News. "But you never know."
Twitter sued Musk for pulling out of the agreement, which would put him on the hook for $1 billion. However, the world's richest man, according to Forbes' latest list, has said the company was defrauding investors and being untruthful when he made his initial bid so he should not have to pay.
"Unless he can prove that there was a material adverse effect of this information on the agreement, it's probably unlikely that he's going to prevail," legal analyst Tracy A. Pearson told Cheddar News. "But you never know."
Since he filed his notice of intent to not purchase Twitter, Musk has since added to his claims whistleblower testimony from Twitter's former head of security Peiter Zatko, who alleged that the company was aware of security flaws and did not fix them to protect user data.
"Taken together, that doesn't look good for Twitter, especially as it has publicly made the health and security of its users a priority," said Jasmine Enberg, Insider Intelligence principal analyst. "It also paints a scary picture of security in the digital space overall."
"People already don't trust digital platforms with their personal and payment information, and Zatko's testimony could erode trust further," Enberg added. "Even so, what people say and how they behave isn't always aligned — we didn't see a mass exodus from Facebook after Cambridge Analytica, for example."
The five-day trial is still slated to begin on October 17 in Delaware's Chancery Court.
