There are still some last-minute twists and turns in the legal battle between Musk and the social networking site.
In a late Monday filing with the Delaware Court of Chancery, the judge weighed in on the request for more information about potential messages between Musk's inner circle and Peiter "Mudge" Zatko. While Zatko has stated under oath that he didn't contact Musk or his team, he did send an email to a legal firm that represents Musk.
Someone reached out to an anonymous account on that day purporting to be a former executive at a leading team at the micro-blogging site. In the email, the sender suggests that Musk's team get in touch with another platform in order to give information about the social network.
Musk's team wanted to limit any additional search for possible messages with Zatko, while Twitter wanted to search any digital communications from a wider swath of Musk's close contacts.
Musk's lawyers argued that Zatko's denial made additional discovery irrelevant. The argument that the email was not forwarded to anyone else because there was nothing else to learn from it was shot down by her.
“Defendants’ interrogatory answers do not obviate the need for Plaintiff to test those answers through document discovery; if they did, document discovery would rarely be permitted. Zatko’s testimony, while sworn, is not susceptible to a credibility assessment at this stage and is therefore not dispositive. Moreover, Defendants’ statements concerning the May 6 email raise more questions. For example, Defendants do not state whether anyone replied to the May 6 email or took any steps (successful or otherwise) to determine the sender’s identity. The timing and the contents of the May 6 email render it at least plausible that Zatko was the author.”
Because Musk relies on new revelations from Zatko, it is possible that he had prior contact with Musk or Musk's team. She says that they can use 15 search terms to find what they want in paper files. The additional documents were supposed to be provided by this Friday. If there is still a trial, Spiro will have to explain what he did after receiving an anonymous email.
In his letter to the SEC, Musk said that he would proceed with buying the company, but only if the Chancery Court ordered a halt to proceedings.
We would assume a letter of intent filed with the SEC would mean a done deal, but this entire saga has never looked like anything approaching a done deal. The timing of Musk's decision to put the deal back on the rails is curious and so is the mysterious May 6 email that we may never have answers about.
It is not known if his about-face has anything to do with the Mudge intrigue or the realization that new intel from the whistle blower might not be enough to get him out of the deal.
The letter addressed the Parti...
It’s official, Elon Musk is buying Twitter
Here are some of the cringiest revelations in the Elon Musk text dump
All Rights Reserved © 2024
