Twitter Has to Give Elon Musk Only One Spam and Bot Checker's Data: Ex-Product Head
Twitter Inc. was ordered to hand over files from its former consumer product head to Elon Musk on spam and bot accounts the billionaire has cited in seeking to abandon his $44 billion purchase of the social media company. But Twitter was spared from producing documents for most of the employees Musk says are key witnesses on the bots issue.
Musk, whom Twitter sued to make him complete the deal, accused the company this month of hiding the names of workers specifically responsible for evaluating how much of the platform's customer base is made up of spam and robot accounts. He asked the judge to force Twitter to identify them. So far Twitter has given up the names of “records custodians,” who aren't as familiar with the data in question.
On Monday, Delaware Chancery Court Judge Kathaleen St. J. McCormick mostly denied Musk's request in a one-page ruling, ordering that Twitter needn't “collect, review, or produce documents” from any of the other 21 additional custodians Musk asked for.
The exception is Kayvon Beykpour, former head of consumer product, who was fired in May.
Beykpour was the top product executive at Twitter for years before he was unexpectedly dismissed by new chief executive officer Parag Agrawal. It was his product team that was most directly responsible for expanding Twitter's user base -- and it is the quality of that base Musk has questioned in seeking to walk away from the deal.
Beykpour joined Twitter in 2015 when the company acquired his live video app, Periscope, and quickly climbed the ranks under former CEO Jack Dorsey. He was pushing Twitter into new product areas, like live audio spaces and newsletters, before he was ousted.
The departures of Beykpour and Bruce Falck, formerly in charge of revenue
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