Twitter court filing claims federal authorities investigating Tesla boss Elon Musk

Twitter revealed in a court filing that the federal authorities are investigating Elon Musk’s conduct of a $44 billion acquisition deal of the social media platform. SpaceX chief's legal team states that the filing is "misdirection" and that Twitt...

By ET Spotlight Special | Oct 14, 2022, 09.07 PM IST

Social media platform, Twitter stated in a court filing, made on October 6, that federal authorities are investigating Tesla CEO Elon Musk's conduct in the $44bn (£39bn) Twitter takeover deal. The latest court filing comes after Musk announced that he would purchase the platform but then the acquisition was stalled over data regarding spam accounts, which the billionaire had demanded from the website.

The Delaware judge paused litigation filed by Twitter on October 6, as on the same day, Elon Musk had said that he would proceed with a $44billion deal to buy the social media platform. It is to mention that the court filing did not elaborate on which conduct by Elon Musk was being investigated.

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Alex Spiro, an attorney for Musk, responded that it is the Twitter executives who are under investigation and that the court filing was a ‘misdirection’. There was no comment from Twitter on Alex Spiro's response.

Prolonged Legal Tussle

The latest revelation of a court filing by Twitter comes in the backdrop of a long legal tassel between the micro-blogging site and the world's richest man Elon Musk. Earlier, in July, Twitter sued Musk to push the deal to closure. But Elon Musk's attorneys used investigative privilege as the reason to refuse the documents requested by Twitter.

In September, they also provided a log of privilege listing the documents to be withheld. The documents included a presentation to the Federal Trade Commission and an email draft to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In the court filing, Twitter again requested the Judge for documents to be handed over.

FAQs:

Has Elon Musk been questioned by the SEC earlier?
The SEC questioned Elon Musk on his comments regarding the Twitter acquisition.

What was the question about Elon Musk's Twitter stake?
The SEC in April questioned Elon Musk about why his disclosure of a 9% stake in Twitter indicated that he intended to be a passive shareholder. Musk refiled later as an active investor.

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