The list of those subpoenaed includes several prominent investment firms and venture capitalists, some of whom are part of the so-called PayPal Mafia, a group of tech industry powerhouses who worked at the payments company co-founded by Musk.
According to a court filing, Twitter sent a subpoena to Founders Fund, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm created by Peter Thiel, the controversial billionaire who also co-founded PayPal. Twitter is also said to have sent subpoenas to investors Joe Lonsdale and David Sachs, according to tweets from the two individuals.
Lonsdale, co-founder of Palantir and a former PayPal employee, said in a tweet this week that his subpoena was part of a “giant harassment fishing expedition.” Sachs, a former PayPal executive and founder of Yammer, responded to the call by tweeting a magazine cover with an image of a middle finger on it.
Twitter declined to comment for this story.
Musk decided to end the acquisition agreement last month, claiming that Twitter breached the deal by failing to hand over data that he said was needed to estimate the number of bots and spam accounts on the platform. Days later, Twitter sued Musk to force him to go through with the deal.
A five-day trial is set to begin in Delaware on Oct. 17 after Twitter pushed for an expedited process.
By sending out subpoenas to Musk’s investors and associates, Twitter may be trying to determine when the Tesla CEO decided to back out of the deal and his reasons for doing so.
“They’re trying to corroborate his story,” Charles Elson, founding director of the Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware, told CNN Business. “Was he really misled? Was not it? Was that a strategy or was it a genuine concern about what he was told or not told?’
Some analysts have suggested that Musk is using the bot explanation as an excuse to walk away from a deal that now looks overpriced after Twitter’s stock and the overall tech market tumbled. Shares of Tesla, which Musk is relying on in part to finance the deal, also fell after he agreed to the acquisition. (A lawyer for Musk previously called the proposal “nonsense.”) Before closing the deal, Musk had lined up financing for the acquisition, including debt commitment letters from Morgan Stanley and other unnamed financial institutions, as well as billions in equity financing from various tech companies. investment companies.
According to a court filing, Twitter sent a subpoena to AH Capital Investments, an Andreessen Horowitz fund that is among the firms listed as agreeing to provide equity financing for the deal.
Founders Fund and AH Capital Investments were not immediately available for comment.
Twitter also sent subpoenas to two of Musk’s companies, Tesla and SpaceX, according to court documents.
Claire Duffy contributed to this report.
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