Elon Musk Facing Legal Scrutiny For Allegedly Keeping Secrets From Twitter
Private messages exchanged between Elon Musk and Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison via the encrypted messaging app Signal have come under scrutiny due to the potential connection they have to Musk's ill-fated Twitter deal.
This article is more than 2 years old
The battle between Elon Musk and Twitter continues as private messages sent by the billionaire have come under scrutiny. Lawyers for the opposing sides faced off in Delaware’s Court of Chancery ahead of the trial that will determine the fate of the acquisition deal. Among the issues raised during the three-hour long hearing was the 51-year-old’s use of the encrypted messaging app Signal.
Lawyers for the social media giant say Elon Musk has been withholding messages sent with the app, citing a screenshot of an exchange with Jared Birchall. The attorneys say the conversation between the Tesla boss and the head of his family office referenced Morgan Stanley and Marc Andreesen. There was also a discussion about European Union regulatory approval of the deal with Twitter.
The micro-blogging site’s legal team said they uncovered the screenshot after Elon Musk and Birchall had denied using Signal to talk about the ill-fated deal. The screenshot showed the message was set to automatically delete, Engadget reports. Lawyers for Twitter also referenced a missing text message between the billionaire and Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison, who was a co-investor in the deal.
Elon Musk and Ellison were texting the morning before the former told the internet the deal was temporarily on hold. The significance of the text exchanges remains unclear, but Twitter’s lawyers said the Space X founder wrote to Ellison saying “interesting times” before arranging a phone call with him. Now, the company is asking judge Kathaleen St. J. McCormick, to sanction the 51-year-old over his side’s handling of his messages.
“We do think that the time has come for the court to issue a severe sanction,” Twitter’s lawyers said during the hearing. Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s legal team tried to downplay the significance of him using Signal. “There actually is no evidence that we destroyed evidence,” the billionaire’s lawyer stated. “Signal sounds like it’s a nefarious device. But Twitter executives have testified that a number of them actually use the messaging app,” she said.
Elon Musk’s legal team proceeded to cite the existence of Signal messages between Twitter’s Jack Dorsey and board chair Bret Taylor. They also noted that current CEO Parag Agrawal has turned over messages sent with the app. “Signal is not some exotic mechanism, it’s very common in Silicon Valley to use this platform,” the attorney continued. Interestingly, this isn’t the first time the social media firm has used Musk’s private messages.
Obtained in the legal discovery process, lawyers for the social media have referenced several of Elon Musk’s text exchanges in their bid to enforce the original terms of the acquisition deal. Twitter’s lawyers previously refers to a text message between the billionaire and one of his Morgan Stanley bankers where he expressed concerns about “World War III” as a reason to slow-roll his negotiations with the company.
The judge is expected to rule on Twitter’s motion to sanction Elon Musk in the next few days. A five-day trial that will determine the fate of the deal will take place on October 17th.
