That will be almost impossible to prove. Especially as he provided an all-cash, take-it-or-leave-it offer based on publicly available financial data. He has access to lawyers and financial advisors to warn him against potential misstatemrnts on Twitter's part.
If they signed off on it, he has no case. If they warned him against it, and he went ahead anyway, he also has no case.
The judge will rightfully wonder how this isn't anything other than a attention-hungry blowhard trying to get out of scoring the most comical own goal in business history.
What happens in cases like this is that Musk will request the court for discovery of internal Twitter documents/emails/reports/etc to backup his claim that Twitter was aware that more bots existed in their BAU number than they reported.
Twitter will object, but ultimately some degree of discovery will be allowed (with a more narrow scope), but it will pressure Twitter to settle for a lower purchase price because god only knows what kinds of incriminating shit lawyers will find in employee emails. Internal emails is always a big big random variable which can then spawn all sorts of unrelated lawsuits from discrimination, to regulatory fines, to executives' private life drama, etc...
Even if Twitter is innocent - it is very easy for lawyers to intentionally misconstrue a vague email or threaten so with things found in discovery.
Internal emails is always a big big random variable which can then spawn all sorts of unrelated lawsuits from discrimination, to regulatory fines, to executives' private life drama, etc...
Given the NDAs that would apply to such discovery, were such information to exist and to become public, Musk would likely be imprisoned for contempt of court.
Not simply fined. Imprisoned. And his lawyers would likely be suspended for a few months, if not disbarred. You don't mess with the courts, because they have the power to mess right back.
The discovery by the lawyer team alone is probably scary enough.
There is a high chance that twitter will settle for XB.
At this point, it is just free money for twitter.
Imagine Musk acquires twitter and exposes all internal emails (well, he owns the company) and sue execs one by one for every little thing that is wrong.
Execs are earning 10M/year. For these people, money is not an issue. Getting into a scandal is a huge issue.
I mean, the trivial case is Musk's discovery reveals some smoking gun email about knowing that their methodology showed 50% mDAU were bots but the CEO overruling everyone and putting 5% on the SEC filing instead. Not close to impossible to prove if it's that stupid (not saying it is)
