Elon Musk goes after New York ad tech firms in ongoing Twitter lawsuit

Elon Musk has subpoenaed advertising technology firms Ad Science and DoubleVerify as the tech billionaire continues to look for evidence that might help him walk away from the $44 billion deal with Twitter. 

In his quest to gain more information on the number of bot and spam accounts on Twitter, the tech billionaire’s team of lawyers have asked the two companies for documents and communications that the company might have had with the microblogging site. This includes any reviews of any accounts the two firms might have done, or even their participation in an audit of Twitter’s user base. 

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The two New York-based companies have technology that allows them to verify if ads posted on Twitter have been viewed by real people. Their services are used by advertisers to ensure that the ads they pay for are seen by real people and not bots. 

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Earlier this year the Tesla co-founder had made a serious inquiry about buying out Twitter. The deal was approved by the company’s board and Musk had expressed a willingness to pay $44 billion to buy the company. At the time, the company’s share’s were worth $51.70 and the SpaceX founder was willing to pay 38% more, at $54.20 per share for the entire company.

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However, after months of mounting criticism of the platform, Musk eventually pulled out of the $44 billion buyout in July 2022 saying that Twitter had failed to provide an ‘adequate’ response to his queries about the bot and spam accounts. Days later, Twitter sued in an attempt to get the world’s richest man to follow through with the deal. 

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Musk countersued in August 2022 saying that Twitter’s monetizeable users, i.e., ‘real’ daily active users were actually 65 million lower than what the company had said. Twitter has denied these claims. 

Twitter and Elon Musk will be going to court in the Delaware Court of Chancery from October 17 to October 21 after the microblogging site asked to expedite the proceedings.