Twitter Inc.’s TWTR 2.33% legal battle with Elon Musk to enforce his stalled $44 billion takeover has gotten more complicated.
In a whistleblower complaint made public Tuesday, the social-media platform’s former head of security accused Twitter of making misleading regulatory disclosures about spam and fake accounts, an issue at the center of Mr. Musk’s stated reasons for abandoning the deal.
The complaint is separate from the merger dispute in Delaware but could be wielded to request more discovery, add fresh claims and provide new information about whether Mr. Musk had accurate details when he agreed to buy the company, according to legal scholars, litigators and lawyers following the case.
Still, notable differences exist between the complaint and Mr. Musk’s lawsuit, and it isn’t clear how much impact the whistleblower’s allegations will have on the trial or offer grounds to terminate the deal, legal academics and attorneys say. Mr. Musk’s legal team likely would have to show a deliberate attempt by Twitter executives to misrepresent or omit information about the data, the observers say.
Twitter sued Mr. Musk on July 12 in Delaware Court of Chancery to try to force him to go through with his takeover bid after he said in a July 8 securities filing that he planned to walk away. Mr. Musk said he wanted out because the company hadn’t provided the necessary data and information he needed to assess the prevalence of fake or spam accounts on its platform. Mr. Musk later...
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