Twitter Ordered to Provide Subset of Elon Musk’s ‘Absurdly Broad’ Request for Data
Twitter has been ordered to produce a narrower section of the data requested.
Photo:
amy osborne/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
A Delaware judge called Elon Musk’s request for years of data about
Twitter Inc.’s
TWTR 0.64%
spam and fake accounts “absurdly broad” but ordered the social-media company to provide a subset of the information in the continuing legal battle over the billionaire’s soured $44 billion takeover.
Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick said in a decision Thursday that the request by Mr. Musk’s legal team to compel the company to produce “trillions upon trillions of data points” for more than 200 million users was overly burdensome and “no one in their right mind has ever tried to undertake such an effort.”
The judge ordered Twitter to produce a narrower section of the data requested, including a historical snapshot of accounts that were reviewed by the company to determine the number of spam and fake accounts on its platform, an issue central to the dispute over Mr. Musk’s effort to terminate the merger agreement and substantiate his counterclaim of fraud.
The judge ruled after a hearing Wednesday in Wilmington, Del.
Mr. Musk’s attorney
Alex Spiro
said in a statement, “We look forward to reviewing the data Twitter has been hiding for many months.”
Twitter declined to comment on the judge’s decision.
Mr. Musk is seeking among other things to verify Twitter’s disclosures to the Securities and Exchange Commission regarding estimates that less than 5% of monetizable daily active users, or MDAUs, are fake or spam accounts.
Twitter must produce 9,000 accounts reviewed in connection with its fourth-quarter 2021 audit, the judge wrote, as well as documents sufficient to show how those accounts were selected for review. She said Mr. Musk has agreed to treat the data as highly confidential.
The social-media platform indicated in the hearing that it could produce such documents in less than two weeks “with considerable effort.” The judge said Twitter “must strive to meet that timeline.”
Chancellor McCormick said Twitter already agreed to produce 10 broad categories of documents addressing Mr. Musk’s requests for information on MDAUs. She ordered Twitter to produce a small additional set of data from its database, namely documents reflecting discussion of any other key metric identified by Mr. Musk’s team.
The judge also ordered Twitter to produce some documents from the board and management.
Write to Erin Mulvaney at [email protected]
Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Appeared in the August 26, 2022, print edition as ‘Twitter Ordered to Give Musk Data Subset Requested.’
Twitter has been ordered to produce a narrower section of the data requested.
Photo:
amy osborne/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
A Delaware judge called Elon Musk’s request for years of data about
Twitter Inc.’s
TWTR 0.64%
spam and fake accounts “absurdly broad” but ordered the social-media company to provide a subset of the information in the continuing legal battle over the billionaire’s soured $44 billion takeover.
Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick said in a decision Thursday that the request by Mr. Musk’s legal team to compel the company to produce “trillions upon trillions of data points” for more than 200 million users was overly burdensome and “no one in their right mind has ever tried to undertake such an effort.”
The judge ordered Twitter to produce a narrower section of the data requested, including a historical snapshot of accounts that were reviewed by the company to determine the number of spam and fake accounts on its platform, an issue central to the dispute over Mr. Musk’s effort to terminate the merger agreement and substantiate his counterclaim of fraud.
The judge ruled after a hearing Wednesday in Wilmington, Del.
Mr. Musk’s attorney
Alex Spiro
said in a statement, “We look forward to reviewing the data Twitter has been hiding for many months.”
Twitter declined to comment on the judge’s decision.
Mr. Musk is seeking among other things to verify Twitter’s disclosures to the Securities and Exchange Commission regarding estimates that less than 5% of monetizable daily active users, or MDAUs, are fake or spam accounts.
Twitter must produce 9,000 accounts reviewed in connection with its fourth-quarter 2021 audit, the judge wrote, as well as documents sufficient to show how those accounts were selected for review. She said Mr. Musk has agreed to treat the data as highly confidential.
The social-media platform indicated in the hearing that it could produce such documents in less than two weeks “with considerable effort.” The judge said Twitter “must strive to meet that timeline.”
Chancellor McCormick said Twitter already agreed to produce 10 broad categories of documents addressing Mr. Musk’s requests for information on MDAUs. She ordered Twitter to produce a small additional set of data from its database, namely documents reflecting discussion of any other key metric identified by Mr. Musk’s team.
The judge also ordered Twitter to produce some documents from the board and management.
Write to Erin Mulvaney at [email protected]
Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Appeared in the August 26, 2022, print edition as ‘Twitter Ordered to Give Musk Data Subset Requested.’
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