Elon Musk v. Twitter: Private Text Dump Shows Tesla CEO ‘Workshopping’ Buyout Deal Aspects
13:56 GMT 30.09.2022 (Updated: 12:57 GMT 14.04.2023)
© AP Photo / Hannibal Hanschke
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Twitter and Elon Musk are due in court on October 17 in the legal battle over whether the Tesla CEO has to follow through on the merger agreement he signed to buy the social media giant.
Elon Musk's buyout of Twitter was assembled in colorful private conversations with key figures at the social media platform, such as founder Jack Dorsey, board chair Bret Taylor and current CEO Parag Agrawal, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, and investors like Jason Calacanis and even podcaster Joe Rogan.
A trove of texts were published on September 28 as part of court filings in the pre-trial discovery process in the court battle between Twitter and Musk.
The text dump, first reported on a Twitter account that follows the Delaware Chancery Court, where the five-day trial will take place, shows the tech guru workshopping ideas on how to improve the social media platform and render it profitable. It also sheds light on how he assembled the financing for the deal that he later backed out of.
if y'all want to comb through these texts or a list of all the contacts that musk identified (except for the ones redacted) & a whole bunch of lawyers being lawyers that will bore you to tears but also this exchange is pricelesshttps://t.co/G79ruYPxhk pic.twitter.com/8nmF2z9GrH
— The Chancery Daily (@chancery_daily) September 29, 2022
Twitter's founder Jack Dorsey, who stepped down in November 2021, discussed taking Twitter private with Musk in late March, the cache of texts reveals.
“A new platform is needed. It can’t be a company. This is why I left,” Dorsey said.
When Musk asked for details of how Twitter should look like, Dorsey, referred to under the nickname “jack jack” in the billionaire's phone, replied:
"I believe it must be an open source protocol, funded by a foundation of sorts that doesn’t own the protocol, only advances it. A bit like what Signal has done. It can’t have an advertising model.”
13 September 2022, 17:11 GMT
Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk acquired a 9.2 per cent stake in Twitter on April 4, after which the shares of the social networking site jumped 28 percent. He later said that he was ready to buy out the entire company.
Elon Musk also revealed he did not want to be a boss in an early April conversation with Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, as they bonded over being former engineers and current CEOs.
“Frankly, I hate doing mgmt (management) stuff. I kinda don’t think I should be the boss of anyone. But I love helping solve technical/product design problems,” Musk told Agrawal.
“Treat me like an engineer instead of a CEO,” Agrawal told Musk.
Two days later, after Musk asked if Twitter was "dying", as he speculated on the platform's decline, Agrawal reprimanded him, writing, "It's my responsibility to tell you that it's not helping me make Twitter better in the current context."
Musk replied that he wouldn't join the board and planned to take Twitter private.
Later, on April 26, Dorsey, Musk and Agrawal conversed on a Google Hangout communications service about the takeover. Dorsey appeared to try and patch up the souring relationship between Musk and Agrawal, but failed.
Dorsey commented to Musk, "At least it became clear that you can't work together. That was clarifying."
WOW 💀💀💀
— The Chancery Daily (@chancery_daily) September 29, 2022
this went from 100 to 0 in like ... two days?
they had a call, maybe tried to talk like engineers?
elon tweeted, parag said, hey, this doesn't really help us, and elon took one minute and said bye bye brah https://t.co/FhKxZd0pMm pic.twitter.com/cDE7xIORIK
The text messages reveal Elon Musk sharing his ideas on free speech, telling investor Antonio Gracias, "Free speech matters most when it's someone you hate spouting what you think is bull****."
Gracias responded, quipping, "You are totally right. I 100% agree with you."
22 August 2022, 22:15 GMT
The messages also show Musk's plans for a blockchain-based version of Twitter after taking over, as he said in April:
"I have an idea for a blockchain social media system that does both payments and short text messages/links like twitter. You have to pay a tiny amount to register your message on the chain, which will cut out the vast majority of spam and bots. There is no throat to choke, so free speech is guaranteed."
The text exchanges were part of redacted documents that Elon Musk's lawyers filed on Thursday after challenging a Twitter claim that they couldn't be made public because they contained sensitive information.
7 September 2022, 11:56 GMT
Twitter and Elon Musk are due in court on October 17 after Twitter sued the tech billionaire in July for failing to honor his obligations on the merger agreement he signed in April.
Elon Musk promised sweeping changes to the site, including purging the platform of bots when he sealed a deal to buy all of the social media company's shares for a total of $44 billion, which would have effectively turned it back into a private company. However, he backed out, alleging that Twitter had deliberately understated its fake and spam accounts.
After Twitter sued Musk to enforce the contract, the world’s richest man countersued.
