Court orders Twitter to give Musk more data on bots in battle over deal

Twitter must turn over information about 9,000 accounts it surveyed last year in hopes of identifying which had human beings attached to them: Court

Twitter Inc. was ordered to hand over more information about spam and bot accounts to Elon Musk as part of its legal fight to make the billionaire complete his $44 billion acquisition of the social-media platform.

Delaware Chancery Court Judge Kathaleen St. J. McCormick Thursday ruled Twitter must turn over information about 9,000 accounts it surveyed last year in hopes of identifying which had human beings attached to them. Twitter sought to deny Musk access to this “historical snapshot” on privacy and other grounds.

Twitter also “must produce documents sufficient to show how those 9,000 accounts were selected for review,” McCormick said in her ruling. At a hearing on Wednesday, Musk’s lawyers accused their Twitter counterparts of stonewalling them on the bots information in pre-trial information exchanges.

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Twitter didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. “We look forward to reviewing the data Twitter has been hiding for many months,” Alex Spiro, a lawyer for Musk, said in an emailed statement.

Musk has said misleading information put out by Twitter about the number of spam and bot accounts gives him a valid reason to exit his $54.20-per-share bid for the platform. Twitter counters he’s legally handcuffed by the merger agreement and must consummate the deal.

The ruling on the bot survey was only among multiple orders McCormick issued Thursday to resolve discovery issues raised by both sides in the case. The judge didn’t give Musk everything he wanted on the bots issue, noting his demands for the data were “absurdly broad.”

She also ruled Twitter didn’t have to broaden the date range of the documents it’s offering to Musk on the question of whether spam and robot accounts make up more than the 5 per cent disclosed in the firm’s securities filings. But she also said Musk’s lawyers could withhold reports from their computer experts’ digging into the bot issues as privileged-work product. 

While Twitter has to hand over details on the 9,000 accounts, McCormick warned they are subject to strict confidentiality rules. “The historical-snapshot data that I have ordered produced is highly sensitive,” the judge said, adding that Musk’s lawyers agreed to “treat this data as highly confidential.”

At a hearing Wednesday, one of Twitter’s lawyers worried about Musk’s propensity for sharing confidential data in some of his tweets. Bradley Wilson, one of the platform’s attorneys, reminded McCormick that Twitter was being asked to turn over user data to “someone who publicly mocked” the company and threatened to disclose its internal data.

Both sides are jockeying for position as they prepare for an Oct. 17 trial, sending out a spate of subpoenas to equity investors, advisers and banks involved in the proposed acquisition. Earlier this week, ex-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was subpoenaed along with whistle-blower Peiter Zatko, who raised concerns about the bot issue before being fired from the platform.

The case is Twitter v. Musk, 22-0613, Delaware Chancery Court (Wilmington).