Yahoo Finance Twitter Subpoenas Musk Deal Investors, Digs Into Andreessen, VCs
(Bloomberg) -- Twitter Inc. subpoenaed records from equity investors including a unit of Brookfield Asset Management Inc., and sought information on Marc Andreessen and a host of venture capital figures, over Elon Musk’s financing of the $44 billion buyout it sued him to complete.
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Brookfield’s new venture capital arm put $250 million into Musk’s $7.1 billion equity raise for the deal in May. Twitter’s lawyers want to know about the terms of that investment and the billionaire’s efforts to syndicate the package, according to court filings Tuesday in Delaware.
Twitter demanded information from more than a dozen firms besides Brookfield, including DFJ Growth IV Partners, Valor Equity Partners, Fidelity Management & Research and Andreessen’s AH Capital Management, according to the filings.
Read More: Morgan Stanley, BofA Subpoenaed by Twitter in Musk Fight
The social media company also sought information from investor Key Wealth Advisors on Jason Calacanis, Steve Jurvetson, Joe Lonsdale, Chamath Palihapitiya, Keith Rabois and David Sacks. The Washington Post on Monday reported that subpoenas had gone out seeking information on those investors, some of whom weren’t previously known to have been involved in the deal.
Bloomberg LP, which owns Bloomberg News, has invested in Andreessen Horowitz.
As the agreement between Musk and Twitter was coming together, Calacanis had canvassed his network of wealthy investors to solicit backing for the deal. “We are now collecting interest to invest in Twitter, with Elon Musk’s plan to take it private,” he wrote in a May 11 message seen by Bloomberg with the subject “Twitter interest.” He asked investors to get back to him that night. It’s unclear how much interest he got.
The pretrial request for information seeks a wide range of communications and documents about Musk’s bid to acquire Twitter for $54.20 a share, which he is seeking to undo over claims the company failed to provide him with information about spam and bot accounts. Twitter also has hit a list of banks involved in Musk’s financing package with a round of subpoenas about their involvement.
Some decried the effort as overly broad, with Lonsdale calling it “a giant harassing fishing expedition” and complaining of a “YOU ARE HEREBY COMMANDED” notice.
Many of those investors know Musk from his days at PayPal, which he ran until his ouster in 2000. Rabois and Sacks were PayPal executives, and Lonsdale once worked as a PayPal intern. Jurvetson, who has been friends with Musk for years, holds a board seat at SpaceX and previously held one at Tesla Inc., both run by Musk.
Calacanis is also in Musk’s orbit, and hosts a podcast called All-In, with Sacks and Palihapitiya among its hosts. At a recent All-In conference in Miami, Musk dialed in to speak and spent some of the time casting doubt on Twitter’s numbers.
Delaware Chancery Court Judge Kathaleen St. J. McCormick has scheduled a five-day trial starting on Oct. 17 in Wilmington.
The case is Twitter v. Musk, 22-0613, Delaware Chancery Court (Wilmington).
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(Updates to add details on Jason Calacanis’s fundraising efforts in the sixth paragraph.)
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