USA: Elon Musk called on Twitter Inc. co-founder and longtime friend Jack Dorsey to testify in his defense against the social media company's lawsuit, forcing him to complete his proposed $44 billion purchase Had to be

Dorsey, who stepped down as Twitter's CEO last year, has been a vocal supporter of Musk's takeover bid, tweeting in April that Musk was the "singular solution I trust" to lead the company.

The summons comes on the heels of two issued on Twitter on Friday to former head of consumer product Kevon Baccour and former head of revenue product Bruce Falk. The billionaire is increasingly collecting documents and data to demonstrate that Twitter understands the proportion of its customer base made up of spam and robot accounts.

As the world's richest man withdrew from the deal, both sides have summoned dozens of people, banks and funds in a legal battle in Delaware. The flurry of gathering information and interviewing key players in the deal precedes the trial, which is scheduled to begin on October 17 and last five days.

Given the histories of both, Musk's decision to summon Dorsey, who served as CEO twice, is intriguing. Over the years, the two executives, who are both big bitcoin supporters, have been friendly. Dorsey praised Musk, calling him a favorite influencer tweeter and inviting him to Twitter to discuss product ideas.

Dorsey told Rolling Stone in early 2019 that he "loved" Musk and what he was trying to achieve with Tesla Inc. and SpaceX. Musk appeared at Twitter's companywide retreat in early 2020 to talk with employees about Twitter's bot problem via videochat.

Recently, both have advocated for greater transparency in Twitter's software and content moderation decisions. According to a regulatory filing, Dorsey was the first to call on Musk after becoming Twitter's largest shareholder in late March. Dorsey, who was still a Twitter director at the time, later encouraged Musk to join the board and praised him after the board agreed to sell the company to Musk.

Earlier this month, Tesla CEO Elon Musk accused Twitter of hiding the identities of employees who were specifically tasked with determining the ratio of spam and robot accounts. Musk claims the company has failed to demonstrate that they account for less than 5% of its active users, as stated in the regulatory filing.

According to Twitter, it's all a ploy to justify walking away from the deal.

Musk and Dorsey have their disagreements. After the Capitol riots, Dorsey's Twitter permanently banned former President Donald Trump, despite the fact that Dorsey handed most of the moderation decisions to his legal deputy and later publicly questioned the ban.

Musk has said he opposes "permanent sanctions" and would reinstate Trump if he bought Twitter, but did not articulate a broader content policy philosophy.

Dorsey stepped down as CEO of Twitter to focus on his payment processing company, Block Inc.
Twitter's former head of consumer products, Baykpore, was the company's top product executive for years before being suddenly fired by new CEO Parag Agarwal.

It was his team that was most responsible for growing Twitter's user base, and it is the quality of that base that Musk has questioned in his attempt to avoid an acquisition.

Becpor joined Twitter in 2015, after the company bought their live video app, Periscope, and quickly rose through the ranks under Dorsey's leadership. Before being fired, he was pushing Twitter into new product areas like the live audio space and newsletters.

The departures of Baccour and Falk reflected Twitter's balance while it waited for a new owner, which has now been accelerated by litigation. Meanwhile, because of the hiring freeze and other cost-cutting measures, some employees are unsure whether the projects or teams they are working on will be prioritized under the new leadership.

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