Elon musk has just received another blow in his legal battle with Twitter.
Musk agreed to purchase Twitter for $44 billion in April but announced in July that he is ditching the deal. Twitter sued Musk to force him to buy the social media giant at the agreed price.
Judge Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick reprimanded Musk in an opinion from Wednesday for not handing over all the relevant texts requested during Twitter’s legal discovery.
“Third parties produced text messages with Musk that Musk himself did not produce, and Musk’s own production of text messages revealed glaring deficiencies,” said McCormick.
McCormick cited one example of texts Twitter obtained from Robert Steel, an investment banker, where he appeared to be in conversation with Musk.
In the texts, Steel asked Musk a question and replied: “Ok got it.”
“Assuming that Musk’s response was not telepathic, one would expect some evidence of it in Defendants’ document production,” Judge McCormick wrote.
McCormick also alleged Musk’s team of being slow in producing a list of people with knowledge of the deal. This echoed comments McCormick made during a pre-trial hearing on Tuesday, in which she said efforts by Musk’s team to identify parties involved in the deal were “suboptimal.”
