Hundreds of text messages of Elon Musk have been released weeks before the high-stakes trial into Twitter's delicate negotiations with the billionaire. The messages have been released as part of Twitter's lawsuit against Mr Musk, who is trying to back out of the $44 billion deal. The texts show Mr Musk and a number of his contacts - including former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, entrepreneur Jason Calacanis, and podcaster Joe Rogan - talking about a host of issues. The text messages reveal how the deal imploded.
The documents were first revealed on @chancery_daily, a Twitter account that closely follows the Delaware Chancery Court, where the five-day trial will take place.
Here's a look at the text messages:
Mr Musk doesn't like to be the boss of anyone
In a conversation with Twitter CEO Parag Agarwal, the Tesla chief said he doesn't love being a leader.
"Frankly, I hate doing mgmt stuff. I kinda don't think I should be the boss of anyone. But I love helping solve technical/product design problems," Mr Musk told Mr Agrawal.
The two bonded over their love for engineering. "Treat me like an engineer instead of a CEO," Mr Agrawal told Mr Musk in one of the messages.
Twitter founder Jack Dorsey is also seen speaking highly of Mr Agarwal's engineering ability, the messages further showed.
"Blockchain-based version of Twitter"
The messages also reveal Mr Musk's plans for Twitter after taking over. In one of the messages from April, he said, "I have an idea for a blockchain social media system that does both payments and short text messages/links like twitter. You have to pay a tiny amount to register your message on the chain, which will cut out the vast majority of spam and bots. There is no throat to choke, so free speech is guaranteed."
"My Plan B is a blockchain-based version of twitter, where the 'tweets' are embedded in the transaction of comments," the billionaire told Steve Davis, president of The Boring Company. "So you'd have to pay maybe 0.1 Doge per comment or repost of that comment."
Discussions about future of Twitter
The text messages show that Mr Dorsey and Mr Musk were discussing about the future of Twitter as early as March.
"A new platform is needed. It can't be a company. This is why I left," Mr Dorsey said in one of the text messages. R Musk then asked him what Twitter should look like. "I believe it must be an open source protocol, funded by a foundation of sorts that doesn't own the protocol, only advances it. A bit like what Signal has done. It can't have an advertising model," Mr Dorsey replied.
The text exchanges were included in redacted documents that Mr Musk's lawyers filed on Thursday after challenging a Twitter claim that they couldn't be made public because they contained sensitive information. Several of the "public versions" of those Twitter documents contain wholesale redactions and are almost entirely blacked out.
