Twitter’s subpoenas of Musk’s banks offer clues to its legal strategy.

Shortly after Elon Musk filed his response to Twitter’s lawsuit aimed toward forcing him to finish his acquisition of the corporate, Twitter has in latest days despatched out a rating of subpoenas to the banks which can be backing him within the bid, in addition to to folks in Mr. Musk’s inside circle. The subpoenas provide some hints about Twitter’s authorized technique — and clues as to what Mr. Musk mentioned in his response to the swimsuit, the DealBook publication stories.

Mr. Musk’s response to the lawsuit, filed on Friday, is briefly sealed to the general public whereas he and Twitter work out which elements to redact. His arguments thus far have centered on the corporate’s public disclosures about bots and faux accounts, which he has argued are materially deceptive, giving him grounds to stroll away from the deal. (Twitter’s attorneys have requested what, precisely, was deceptive.)

Now, Twitter has despatched subpoenas to the lengthy listing of banks working with Mr. Musk, together with Morgan Stanley, Financial institution of America and Barclays. The banks are important gamers within the deal. That’s as a result of Twitter’s means to sue Mr. Musk to power him to shut the deal (beneath its “particular efficiency clause”) is voided if his debt financing falls aside. However that out solely works if the banks, which have signed dedication letters, stroll away independently — not if Mr. Musk coerces them.

Twitter needs to know extra about how the banks take into consideration bots. Amongst different issues, it needs study concerning the evaluation that banks have accomplished on Twitter’s bot statistics and about investigations they’ve carried out at Mr. Musk’s instruction. Twitter could also be attempting to discern how a lot the banks truly care about bots, and whether or not Mr. Musk has been prodding them to care.

And Twitter actually needs to know what occurred to Bob Swan, a former chief govt of Intel who performed a key function in placing collectively the deal. To help its allegations that Mr. Musk appeared to cease efforts to finish his financing, which might put him in breach of their contract, Twitter has claimed that Mr. Musk fired Mr. Swan. His substitute was Antonio Gracias, Mr. Musk’s longtime good friend, who “by no means appeared,” in keeping with Twitter’s lawsuit.

Now, Twitter is asking the banks for paperwork detailing Mr. Swan’s firing, and any briefing supplies on the deal that have been provided to Mr. Gracias. That could possibly be as a result of Twitter is attempting to show that Mr. Musk’s personnel shuffling was simply one other try and quash the deal — and that Mr. Gracias was by no means actually concerned.