Ex-Twitter Executives Challenge Musk Claims
Two former high-ranking executives at Twitter Inc. aimed to counter Elon Musk’s claims during a jury trial, asserting that they did not mislead him regarding the composition of the platform’s user base during his acquisition of the company in 2022. Parag Agrawal and Ned Segal took the witness stand on Friday in an investor trial concerning Musk’s tumultuous $44 billion acquisition of the company. However, the two men, who were both dismissed immediately as Musk assumed control of the social networking platform, provided limited detailed accounts of the tumultuous weeks that followed his efforts to withdraw from the agreement and refrained from condemning his actions. Agrawal was asked for his response to Musk’s tweet from May 13, 2022, which is central to the case, indicating that the purchase agreement was “temporarily on hold.” On Friday, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, Agrawal provided a succinct testimony, stating, “It did not make sense to me.”
Segal, who provided testimony for the majority of Thursday, was also succinct. “I was displeased,” was his only reaction to another tweet from Musk criticizing Twitter’s methodology for counting how much of its user base consisted of fake accounts, or bots. The investors assert that Musk’s public criticism of the company was, in fact, a strategy to lower the stock price and secure a more advantageous bargaining position for himself. The two days of testimony from Agrawal and Segal challenged Musk’s recollection that he was consistently committed to the deal, while asserting that he genuinely believed Twitter had misled him regarding the percentage of spam accounts.
Musk expressed to the jury that he was “stunned” by the inability of Agrawal, Segal, and other Twitter executives to offer more specifics regarding the bot count methodology during their initial meeting on May 6, following the signing of the acquisition agreement. Musk emphasized the significance of the bot issue, comparing it to the necessity of examining a termite infestation when buying a house. Agrawal and Segal both testified that the bots were among nearly 20 topics discussed at the meeting, and did not emerge as a particularly significant issue at that time. A week later, in a follow-up meeting, the discussion prominently featured bots; however, Musk opted not to attend.
A few days later, Musk asserted during a conference that bots constituted 20% of the company’s user base. In a series of tweets, Agrawal detailed Twitter’s approach to identifying bot accounts, asserting that they constituted less than 5% of the total user base. Musk subsequently replied to Agrawal using a poop emoji. On the stand, Agrawal was once more terse when questioned about that tweet. “I don’t remember, but it was confusing,” Agrawal testified. Agrawal and Segal, among others, have filed a lawsuit against Musk, claiming he failed to provide $128 million in promised severance following their termination. The executives arrived at a confidential settlement last year.
