Elon Musk subpoenas former Twitter chief Jack Dorsey

Elon Musk and Twitter have been serving a relentless stream of subpoenas as they seek evidence to back their sides in an October court battle over the Tesla chief's effort to walk away from the $44 billion buyout deal.

Elon Musk has served former Twitter boss Jack Dorsey with a subpoena in a hunt for material to help him get out of buying the giant social media platform for $44 billion as agreed.

Records made public on Monday show Dorsey was served with a legal order to give Musk any communications or documents related to the takeover deal inked in April, as well as information touching on false or spam accounts or how Twitter calculates the number of its active users.

Tesla boss Musk, the world's wealthiest man, has accused Twitter of fraud, alleging the company misled him about key aspects of its business, particularly the number of accounts that are actually spam or automated "bots" instead of people.

Twitter also disputed Musk's assertion he has the right to walk away if its bot count is found to be wrong, since he didn't seek information on that topic when he made the buyout offer.

"Musk's counterclaims, based as they are on distortion, misrepresentation, and outright deception, change nothing," Twitter said in a court filing.

Twitter co-founder Dorsey in November of last year ended his second stint as chief of the company and had voiced support for Musk taking it over.

Billions of dollars are at stake, but so is the future of Twitter, which Musk has said should allow any legal speech -- an absolutist position that has sparked fears the network could be used to incite violence.

Twitter has urged shareholders to endorse the deal, setting a vote on the merger for September 13.

"I think Tesla, you know, would continue to do very well even if I was kidnapped by aliens, or went back to my home planet," he joked, drawing laughter and applause. 

He assured shareholders that, for now, he has no plans to leave his Tesla chief role.

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