Twitter chases Citadel’s founder, Binance in a race of subpoenas

As the failed acquisition of social platform Twitter by one of the world’s richest men, Elon Musk, turned into a protracted court conflict, both sides are filing subpoenas to gather information ahead of the first hearing. 

Recent reports claim that Twitter has made an effort to serve subpoenas to Ken Griffin, the founder of hedge fund Citadel, and to major crypto exchange Binance.

According to Bloomberg on Aug. 1, the delivery was attempted at both the Citadel office on Lexington Ave., New York, and at Griffin’s Manhattan residence. The company reportedly refused to accept the legal papers on Griffin’s behalf, alleging that the only option was to deliver the subpoena to the Chicago office.

As Yahoo Finance reports, on the same day Twitter directed subpoenas to Binance and a dozen of Musk’s other advisers and potential lenders in the deal. The subpoenas demand the receivers hand over communication evidence that might support or refute Musk’s suggestion that the social network has under-reported the number of fake or “spam” accounts present on the platform.

Related: Twitter lawyers up to force through Musk deal. Will it work?

Justifying his decision to exit the deal, Musk accused Twitter of concealing the actual number of fake/bot accounts, which in his estimate exceeds 5% of monetizable daily active users (mDAUs) — the mark claimed by social network’s management.

Twitter agrees that this number might be incorrect, but insists that it acknowledged possible errors before the negotiations were terminated by Musk. The company believes Musk’s grievance to be an artificial pretext for backing out of the deal.

The first hearing on Twitter’s suit will be held on Oct.17. The company intends to force Musk into completing the acquisition judicially.

In its quarterly report, Musk-led Tesla revealed the sellout of 75% of its Bitcoin holdings in Q2 2022. The revenue, taken in fiat money, is comprised of $936 million. At the same time, Musk, himself, hasn’t sold any of his personal Bitcoin stash while Tesla still has an estimated 10,800 BTC on its books.