Elon Musk and his legal team are demanding Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) names the employees responsible for calculating the number of bots.
Sources familiar with the matter told Reuters the Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) chief executive is demanding to know the employees who calculated the percentage of spam and bot accounts on the social media site.
Musk cited fake accounts as the reason he withdrew his US$44bn takeover offer last month, which has prompted Twitter to start legal proceedings to try and push the deal through, not just claim the US$1bn break clause.
In April, Twitter admitted that it has been overstating its daily active users numbers by up to 1.9mln since 2019, which it said was the result of an error. But the social media platform calculated that fewer than 5% of its accounts are spambots or fake accounts.
In May, Musk tweeted that the takeover was "temporarily on hold" due to his concerns about the number of spambots the social media giant reported, suggesting he suspected the figure was nearer 20%.
The trial is scheduled to begin on 17 October, with both sides issuing subpoenas to banks and advisers to build their case and gather evidence.
A filing on Tuesday revealed Musk’s demands over the employee names as the battle rages on.
Twitter said previously that it worked co-operatively to share relevant information with Musk to ensure the deal was completed.