Elon Musk is reportedly going after documents from some leading advertising technology companies in order to bolster his effort to walk away from his $44B deal to acquire Twitter ( NYSE: TWTR ).
According to a report from Reuters, Musk's lawyers have subpoenaed Integral Ad Science ( IAS ) and DoubleVerify ( DV ) for documents that show how those companies have been involved in reviewing accounts and any roles they have have in auditing Twitter's ( TWTR ) user base numbers.
The matter of the number of fake, spam or bot accounts on Twitter ( TWTR ) is central to Musk's argument that he has the right to back out of the deal he reached to acquire Twitter ( TWTR ) for $54.20 a share. Musk has said that Twitter ( TWTR ) hasn't be completely open and forthcoming about how many of its users are actually fake or spam accounts, and has argued that he has the right to cancel the acquisition as a result.
Musk is seeking documentation from IAS ( IAS ) and DoubleVerify ( DV ) as those companies' technologies are used to verify that digital ads are being seen by real people instead of automated.
Twitter ( TWTR ) sued Musk to hold him to the terms of the acquisition and a trial is set to be held in Delaware on October 17. Musk has countersued Twitter ( TWTR ), arguing that the company's monetizable daily active users [mDAUs] are far lower than what Twitter ( TWTR ) has disclosed.
Last week, Musk disclosed that he had recently sold $7B worth of Tesla ( TSLA ) stock in a move that led to speculation that a deal for Musk to acquire Twitter ( TWTR ) was becoming more likely, and possibly at a lower selling price .
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Elon Musk reportedly seeks ad tech company data in lawsuit with Twitter