In texts that are now public, Jack Dorsey, the co-founder of Twitter, made fun of Facebook, along with Elon Musk.
On April 6, Dorsey texted, “Looks like there’s a ‘verified’ account in the swamp of despair over there.”
The text, which reveals how the executive discussed the competing social network in private, was made public on Thursday as part of the pretrial discovery process for Twitter’s case against Musk.
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It was one of several texts sent and received by Musk from some of the most influential businessmen in Silicon Valley, including Larry Ellison and Reid Hoffman. After trying to back out of the deal in July, the social networking company is suing Musk to make him acquire the business for $44 billion.
The former Twitter CEO sent a text message in which he shared a link and a screenshot of a Musk-owned verified Facebook account that appeared to be making an offer to purchase Twitter. The billionaire does not truly seem to own the account.
Dorsey pointed out that the phony Facebook account seemed to be promoting cryptocurrency as well, a problem Musk has previously criticised. The Tesla CEO has denounced spam accounts that have used his name to promote cryptocurrency frauds on Twitter and YouTube.
In response to Dorsey’s text, Musk merely sent “Haha.”
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Dorsey has already made fun of or criticised Facebook in public. He cracked a joke last year after Mark Zuckerberg revealed that Facebook’s parent company would be called Meta. Dorsey answered at the time by giving the new name’s definition from a dictionary.
Dorsey tweeted, “Meta: referring to itself or to the conventions of its genre; self-referential.”
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Furthermore, he acknowledged that a tweet that claimed Zuckerberg’s ideas for the metaverse may result in “a dystopian corporate dictatorship” was accurate.
When a security expert revealed that Facebook’s domain name system record had been compromised, putting the website up for sale, the co-founder of Twitter made fun of Facebook the same month.
With Facebook, Dorsey has a long and storied history. Even Zuckerberg had proposed to acquire Twitter for $500 million in 2008, when Dorsey was in charge of the company. The two also talked about Dorsey’s potential to join Facebook after he left Twitter for the first time that year.
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The billionaire’s legal team claimed in a recent court filing in Twitter’s case against Musk that Dorsey had admitted in his deposition that he had Twitter executives use Signal rather than messaging platforms connected to Amazon or Meta.
When it comes to social media, the co-founder of Twitter has conflicting emotions as well. Prior to Musk’s acquisition of Twitter by the business mogul, Dorsey texted Musk that Twitter “should never have been a company.”
He wrote to Musk, “That was the original sin.”
Musk has known Dorsey for a very long time. He granted the billionaire’s intentions to buy the business strong backing.
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When he initially learned of Musk’s initial plans to join the Twitter board on April 5, Dorsey texted the Tesla CEO, “I couldn’t be happier you’re doing this. I’ve wanted it for a long time. Got very emotional when I learned it was finally possible.”
Last month, during the trial between Twitter and Musk, Dorsey was deposed. The Delaware Court of Chancery will open a five-day trial on the matter on October 17.
