So I’m not entirely sure what’s in Elon Musk’s counterclaims against Twitter — they’re still under seal — but I got a hint today when Twitter dropped its response. It’s spicy! Instead of letting Musk air his grievances first, Twitter went ahead and released a blow-by-blow response, all the better to hammer Elon along the way.
I love this:
Counterclaims are a story made for litigation that defies evidence and common sense
Usually, legal documents contain cryptic, passive-aggressive digs at the other party in them. But Twitter’s lawyers came out shaky in their response to Musk’s counterclaims. Perhaps because they know how many people will read these documents; perhaps simply because they are mean interpersonally.
We’ve selected our favorite passages in the documentation and display them here for anyone who might be interested.
So you may recall that Musk’s alleged reason for quitting Twitter was because of Twitter’s “false and misleading statements.” Those statements related to spam and bot accounts and were part of what Musk’s lawyers laid out during the hearing that set the October trial date.
Twitter briefly walked the court through its process, its filings and its disclosure statements in previous SEC filings. “Musk does not identify any false or misleading statement of fact in this disclosure,” Twitter noted. So where did his odd numbers come from? Well, they don’t know because:
Musk doesn’t measure the same as Twitter or even use the same data as Twitter.
Twitter continues to suggest that Musk is deliberately distorting these numbers to “make waves”. And then it says, “Who’s the bot now, hot stuff?”
Musk’s “preliminary expert estimates” are nothing more than the result of running the wrong data through a common web tool. … Confirming the unreliability of Musk’s conclusion, he relied on an Internet application called “Botometer”—which applies different standards than Twitter and which earlier this year identified Musk himself as very likely to be a bot.
I can’t explain how funny I find this? Musk’s sophisticated, secret, “proprietary” analysis of Twitter data was a website called Botometer.
For my money, this is the funniest part of the document. Here are some things Twitter is willing to admit to be true:
Twitter acknowledges that Musk is a Twitter user and has founded several companies.
Twitter recognizes that their business is complex.
Twitter acknowledges that Musk is a Twitter user and has over 100 million followers
Twitter acknowledges that it detects and removes spam from its platform
But “otherwise, Twitter lacks sufficient knowledge or information to form a belief” about whether Musk believes in free speech and open debate, whether he values Twitter as a town hall or that Twitter is a natural investment option for him. Later, Twitter admitted that “Musk tweets often.” Do it once with these words and once like this:
Twitter acknowledges that Musk actively uses Twitter and that many people believe that open discourse is essential to a functioning democracy.
Does Twitter believe that open discourse is essential to a functioning democracy? I don’t know, but they can’t make up their minds whether, according to Musk, “removing free speech is a cure worse than the disease.”
Twitter acknowledges that it did not provide the information in the April 28, 2022 press release to the Musk parties prior to the signing of the Merger Agreement and before the parties entered into a non-disclosure agreement.
Sorry, this might be the humblest of “Twitter admits,” which is: yes, we didn’t give him the press release until he signed an NDA. Now, this is in response to Musk’s complaint that he wasn’t given notice when Twitter announced that it had been miscounting its daily active users for several years. But it seems pretty reasonable to me not to say anything to people with strong Twitter habits and poor impulse control until they sign an NDA.
Or maybe it’s this one. Musk’s lawyers wrote that because Musk thought due diligence was “expensive and ineffective,” he didn’t do it.
Twitter alleges that Musk’s parties refused to perform due diligence before signing the Merger Agreement.
Man, I mean, sometimes it just stings when your opponent agrees with you, huh?
Twitter acknowledges that on July 8, 2022, Defendants intended to terminate the Merger Agreement, that Twitter subsequently filed suit seeking specific performance of the Merger Agreement, and that Defendants filed counterclaims.
Oh yeah, well, Twitter admits that this case exists.
OK, remember the will-you-or-won’t-you dance about Musk joining the board? Twitter does!
Musk suddenly changed his mind about joining Twitter’s board (after first negotiating an offer to join the board, accepting it in writing and tweeting that he was “looking forward” to taking the position), notified Mr. Agrawal of the same, and also notified Mr. Agrawal of its intention to make an offer to purchase Twitter.
Since Musk did not identify any false or misleading statements made by Twitter, Twitter became ominous about his withdrawal from the acquisition:
Musk has just come up with this new pretext for avoiding the merger agreement, as these alleged inaccuracies are not mentioned anywhere in his July 8 letter to Twitter explaining the grounds for the alleged termination of the merger agreement, nor in any other communication with Twitter since the signing of the merger agreement. In any case, Twitter never made the revelations it now claims were false.
In Musk’s lawsuit, his lawyers wrote that Twitter’s “core business is operating a microblogging social media network where users share 280-character messages called ‘tweets.’ Twitter denies this, hilarious.
[Twitter’s] the core product, Twitter, is a global platform for self-expression and real-time conversation, including in the form of tweets. Twitter also claims that Tweets have a maximum length of 280 characters.
I wonder what “social networking” and “microblogging” mean to Twitter lawyers?
I don’t think this one needs any more context, to be honest. I’m just surprised I don’t see actual emojis in the file:
On May 16, 2022, Mr. Musk publicly responded to this topic in a tweet with an emoticon.
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