Twitter’s court document also claimed that Musk’s spam analysis relied on a tool that once identified his own Twitter account as a likely bot.

In a 127-page court document filed in the Delaware Court of Chancery yesterday, Twitter attacked Elon Musk’s response to the company’s lawsuit, claiming that Musk’s claims are “contradicted by the evidence and common sense.”

Musk’s defense and counterclaims, which were filed last week but were withheld from public view so that Twitter could ask for redactions, were the subject of Twitter’s petition. Twitter reportedly decided against redacting anything.

Twitter said that Musk claimed it tricked him into signing a $44 billion merger agreement. Musk is a multi-billionaire entrepreneur who was counseled by Wall Street bankers and attorneys. This story is just that—a story, concocted in an effort to get out of a merger agreement that Musk no longer found appealing after the stock market and with it, his enormous personal wealth declined in value.

“This story is as implausible and contrary to fact as it sounds. And it is just that—a story, imagined in an effort to escape a merger agreement that Musk no longer found attractive. Musk’s Counterclaims, based as they are on distortion, misrepresentation, and outright deception, change nothing. Musk signed and is obligated to consummate the merger agreement,”
Twitter

By contesting Twitter’s public declaration that less than 5% of its monetizable daily active users (mDAU) are spam or false, Musk has defended his attempt to violate the merger agreement. According to Twitter’s court document, Musk utilized his own analysis of publicly accessible data to determine that at least 10% of Twitter’s monetizable daily active users are fraudulent or spam accounts, but Musk is not measuring the same thing as Twitter or even utilizing the same data as Twitter.

Elon Musk’s Botometer rating

Musk specifically employed a website tool called the “Botometer,” which, according to Twitter, has different standards than Twitter and earlier this year declared Musk to be extremely likely to be a bot.

The Observatory on Social Media and the Network Science Institute at Indiana University collaborated to create the Botometer website. According to a court document from Twitter, “the Botometer showed that Elon Musk’s own Twitter account was likely a bot, scoring it 4/5,” citing a May 2022 Protocol article.

Musk’s account had a botometer score of 1.2 out of 5, which means that as of right now, Musk is more “human-like” than a bot. Musk’s account was receiving drastically changing Botometer scores from day to day, according to a post by Protocol in May. The tool “highlights just how hard it is to identify bots, especially using only public data,” the report said.

By rejecting his request to expedite the trial to February 2023, Court of Chancery Judge Kathaleen McCormick handed Musk an important defeat. The trial will now start on October 17 and last for five days.