Now you can read the whole argument Elon Musk’s lawyers are making that his latest change of heart is actually all Twitter’s fault, explained in this 165 page document just made public by the Delaware Court of Chancery.
You know the basics of the story. Musk bought a bunch of Twitter stock. Musk agreed to serve on the company’s board and pledged not to try to buy Twitter. Then he changed his mind, arranged the necessary financing using some of his shares in Tesla, and eventually agreed to a $44 billion deal to buy Twitter. Then he changed his mind again and tried to end the deal, which led to Twitter suing the richest man in the world to force him to buy the company as he said he would.
Twitter’s lawyers are already snooping around Musk’s business dealings trying to find evidence that the switch is about something else, when now we can see the Musk side claiming they’re trying to figure out how many people are really tweeting.
In the second half, it also includes the Musk team’s responses to Twitter’s lawsuit, if you want to read a very expensive argument in full.
Whether you agree with Musk’s lawyers or Twitter’s lawyers, getting the document in one piece is certainly easier to follow. He alleges that Twitter is lying about stats reflecting the number of active users and how many of them are bots and that this fraud he claims is contributing to a “material adverse effect” that should make him walk away from the deal they signed.
Twitter has already released a point-by-point response that includes most of the document, but you need to hear both sides before they meet in court on October 17.