Musk texted Oracle’s Ellison before putting Twitter deal on hold

SAN FRANCISCO: The world’s richest man Elon Musk was busy texting Oracle Chairman and CTO Larry Ellison all night before he decided to terminate the $44 billion Twitter takeover deal in May, the media has reported, citing a court filing.

As per a report, Musk texted Ellison “into the early morning hours” before he announced on Twitter that his $44 billion agreement to takeover the micro-blogging platform was “temporarily on hold”. “Musk’s phone company records show that he exchanged multiple text messages with the Oracle cofounder on May 12, through 12.20 am on May 13,” according to a court filing by Twitter. The tweet was a “precursor to Musk’s later attempt to officially walk away from the deal on July 8” when he sent a letter to the US Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) regarding his decision to drop the acquisition.

In the letter to Judge Kathaleen McCormick in the Delaware Court of Chancery in the US, where the Musk-Twitter legal battle is slated to begin from October 17, Twitter argued that Musk’s legal team has not provided the relevant text messages between Ellison and Musk. Twitter subpoenaed Ellison in August, but the text messages have yet to be publicly filed, the report mentioned.

Musk was set to receive $1 billion from Oracle co-founder Ellison who is a long-time friend of the Tesla and SpaceX CEO.

In 2018, Ellison was named to Tesla’s board of directors and said he was “very close friends with Elon Musk.”

Ellison left Tesla’s board of directors in June.

Twitter is also seeking if there is a connection between its former head of security Peter Zatko and Musk.