Twitter is trying to get Musk’s text messages amid legal battle, report says

Twitter’s demand comes as it was ordered by judge to provide documents on its fired executive to Musk

In its legal battle with Elon Musk, Twitter is seeking access to the Tesla chief’s text messages, according to a new report.

The social media giant wants to search Mr Musk’s text messages during “the relevant period” for “material” related to its lawsuit, Insider reported on Wednesday.

Through most of 2022, the Tesla titan has been busy with agreements, negotiations and legal arguments with Twitter after he made a bid to buy the platform for $44bn and later backed out of the deal.

He was then sued by Twitter to complete the sale to which he countersued, and the social media company also hit back.

While it is unclear when exactly the “relevant period” in Twitter’s request is, the time duration in question is likely to cover the period between when Musk first agreed to buy the social media company on 25 April and when he attempted to back out of the deal on 8 July.

Twitter declined to comment on the matter.

The social media company’s demand for Mr Musk’s texts comes as it was ordered on Monday to provide documents from one of its fired executives to Elon Musk in a rare but partial win for the billionaire.

The Tesla titan’s lawyers had requested documents from 22 Twitter employees whom they said had data on the social media giant’s process of analysing “bot” accounts.

“If Twitter simply provides their method of sampling 100 accounts and how they’re confirmed to be real, the deal should proceed on original terms,” Mr Musk had tweeted earlier this month.

Twitter responded to the Tesla chief’s claims over fake accounts by labelling them as “excuses” to get out of a deal to buy the company.

On Monday, Mr Musk got the go-ahead to receive data from one of the Twitter executives – Kayvon Beykpour, Twitter’s former head of consumer products who was fired in May.

Mr Beykpour had worked for the social media giant since 2015 after his live video app Periscope was acquired by Twitter, but was fired in the aftermath of Mr Musk’s deal to acquire the platform.

“We look forward to reviewing Beykpour’s communications and will continue to seek information and witnesses until the full truth comes out,” Mr Musk’s lawyer Alex Spiro was quoted saying by Bloomberg.