The Twitter interview with a lot at stake is not open to the public.
Wilmington This week, lawyers for Twitter Inc. (TWTR.N) are expected to interview the CEO of Tesla Inc. (TSLA.O) about his sudden decision in July to drop his $44 billion deal to buy the social media company. This will be a test of Elon Musk’s tendency to insult while being questioned under oath.
When testifying in court, the richest person in the world has called opposing lawyers “reprehensible,” questioned their happiness, and said they were trying to “extort” him. He asked one lawyer if he worked on a contingency basis because the lawyer’s client was allegedly behind on child support payments.
So either you’re waiting for something to happen or you’re taking that kid’s money. “Which one?” A transcript of the 2020 deposition says that Musk asked a lawyer for a whistleblower in a case against Tesla.
Related: Twitter will get rid of Elon Musk before the trial for the buyout deal.
The Twitter interview with a lot at stake is not open to the public. In a court filing from last week, it said that Musk’s deposition would start on Monday and, if necessary, go on until Wednesday. Sources who knew about the deposition said that Musk wasn’t questioned on Monday and that they didn’t know when it would start or why.
Musk’s lawyers will want him to stay focused on answering questions, but that can be hard with such a smart and opinionated witness, said James Morsch, a corporate litigator who is not involved in the case.
Morsch said, “It’s like trying to hold a tiger by its tail.”
The transcript of Musk’s 2019 deposition shows that he refused to answer one of the first questions because of how it was asked. This was part of a lawsuit over Tesla’s purchase of SolarCity, which makes solar panels.
A transcript shows that Musk told the other lawyer, Randall Baron, “We can just stare at each other until you rephrase it.”
Baron said, “I think we’ll just call off this deposition.” Baron said he would ask the judge for an order telling Musk to answer questions, which got Musk to talk.
Twitter didn’t say anything, and Musk’s legal team didn’t say anything right away when asked.
Twitter’s lawyers are likely to use the interview to try to show that Musk backed out of the deal because of falling financial markets, not because the company lied to him about the real number of users or hid security flaws, as he claimed.
Musk wants the judge to let him leave without getting in trouble, but Twitter wants him to buy the company for $54.20 per share. On Friday, Twitter’s stock closed up 0.4% at $41.58.
On Oct. 17, a trial that will last five days will start in Wilmington, Delaware.
In the case, there are dozens of depositions planned, including one with Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal. During these depositions, each side will question witnesses and collect evidence to support its case.
A court filing says that Agrawal was supposed to answer questions from Musk’s lawyers at a law firm in San Francisco on Monday, starting at 9 a.m. local time. However, sources say that deposition has also been put off, but they don’t know why.
Jack Dorsey, who helped start Twitter and was once its CEO, was set to be deposed last week.
What’s the real truth?
Musk has sometimes used the same charm and wit in his depositions that he uses on Twitter, where he has a cult-like following.
The mood at a Twitter deposition could be especially tense. The law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz is part of its legal team. The main lawyer on the case, Bill Savitt, represented Musk and Tesla in the SolarCity deal, but not during discovery and depositions in the lawsuit.
Savitt didn’t answer when asked for a comment.
Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati is also a lawyer for Twitter.
Musk’s dislike of the other side’s lawyers, whom he says are “tricky” and only after him for money, comes up in all three depositions that Reuters looked at.
“I heard yesterday that legal services make up 3% of the U.S. economy. Musk told Baron, the lawyer for SolarCity, in the deposition, “That’s one of the saddest things I’ve heard in a long time.”
Martin Tripp, the Tesla whistleblower, said that the company wasted raw materials. At the beginning of the deposition, Musk was asked if he understood the oath he took to tell the truth.
Related: A Dutch town goes to court to get rid of conspiracy theories on Twitter.
“This sounds like some kind of argument in legalese or semantics. According to the transcript, Musk asked, “What is the whole truth about something?” “‘Is that a tree?’ you ask. What kind of tree is that? Is it a big tree with many leaves? Or are you telling the whole truth when you say something is a tree? No, not at all.”
The lawyer for Tripp reminded Musk that the judge had said he would be there in person to watch the deposition if questions weren’t answered correctly.
Attorney William Fishbach asked, “Are you going to do what the judge told you to do there?”
Musk said, “Of course.”
