Elon Musk called on Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey (pictured) to give evidence in an upcoming legal battle with the social media company over the billionaire’s decision to drop a $44 billion takeover bid.

A filing showed Musk’s legal team subpoenaed Dorsey to give evidence about spam accounts and bots operating on Twitter, and how such accounts impact the company’s business and operations.

Dorsey vacated the CEO position at Twitter in November 2021, long before Musk launched the aborted takeover bid for the company.

However, Dorsey did publicly back Musk to buy the company, tweeting the billionaire was the “singular solution” he trusted to take ownership.

As well as Dorsey, Musk’s legal team has subpoenaed Twitter’s former head of consumer product Kayvon Beykpour, and prior revenue and product lead Bruck Falck. Both were shown the door by Twitter in May.

Breaches
After having a $44 billion bid accepted by Twitter’s board in April, Musk pulled out of the deal in July, due to what he argued were multiple breaches of the purchase agreement.

At the heart of his grievances was the lack of information provided by Twitter on the number of spam accounts operating on the platform.

Twitter then launched a lawsuit in an attempt to make Musk honour the deal. The company argued the billionaire pulled out the deal because it no longer served his interests.

The trial is due to begin on 17 October.