AGL Energy chairman Peter Botten has written to Mike Cannon-Brookes to stop him voicing “false” and “misleading” statements on the electricity giant’s proposed demerger. However, the tech mogul’s Grok Ventures hit back, saying it is AGL that is “on the wrong side of the facts and the wrong side of history”.

The formal two-page letter emailed by Mr Botten on Tuesday also asks AGL’s biggest shareholder to correct one false statement about coal supplies to the Bayswater generator “as an absolute priority”.