“Maybe Elon never intended to buy Twitter after all,” Charlie Kirk, podcaster and CEO of Turning Point USA, said in a tweet on Friday. “Maybe he just wanted to get it out.” “Maybe he just wanted to get it out.” In a Sunday post on Gettr, former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon said Twitter has repeatedly lied “about the scale, breadth, depth, source and ubiquity of BOTs versus real people users”. He continued, “Twitter isn’t a real company — it’s an ‘information warfare machine’.” Right-wing pundits had initially applauded the idea of a Musk-owned Twitter on the assumption that the Tesla CEO would reverse the ban on former President Donald Trump and other conservatives — an impression encouraged by Musk’s emphasis on restoring free speech . But with Musk now going to court with Twitter to get out of the deal, these experts’ attention has turned to any embarrassing secrets that could emerge in the trial’s discovery process. A trial of the lawsuit would involve significant discovery, the release of internal company information to a suite of hungry right-wing pundits who are preparing to describe it as confirmation that Twitter is biased against conservatives. Musk has already shown he’s willing to work with these entities, and the alliance could benefit both of them in the long run. Previous technology lawsuits have revealed damaging information about platforms in the past. As part of a British parliamentary inquiry into Facebook in 2018, lawmakers obtained and released sealed court documents showing that CEO Mark Zuckerberg personally approved the decision to cut Vine, the now-defunct video app, from the platform’s API shortly after its acquisition by Twitter. Musk has already thrown his weight behind the apocalyptic narrative of the right, posting a meme on Monday that read: “They said I couldn’t buy Twitter. Then they wouldn’t disclose bot information… Now they have to disclose bot information in court.” The meme ends with an image of Musk, head thrown back, laughing hysterically. Central to Musk’s argument to cancel the deal is the claim that Twitter misrepresented the number of bots on the platform. Fake users affect the amount of money the company could make in ad revenue, making it a less profitable market for Musk. Since those numbers weren’t disclosed at the time the deal was made, Musk believes he’s within his rights to walk away. “Musk deserves credit for further exposing the incurable, rotten, politically biased culture inside Blue Bird” It’s a defense Musk began laying the groundwork for very shortly after he first proposed taking over Twitter — and one that’s been enthusiastically embraced by the right. “So basically Twitter has a huge number of spam accounts — way more than they’re letting on — and they’re busted for it!!!” Donald Trump Jr. said in a tweet Friday. While Musk has made political donations to Republicans in the past, his relationship with the right grew stronger after his decision to buy Twitter. During a Financial Times conference call in May, Musk called Trump’s ban from Twitter a “morally bad decision” and said he would allow the former president to return to the platform once he reviewed it. Even if the information from the lawsuit doesn’t implicitly prove that Twitter is censoring conservatives, it’s likely that the right will frame it as such. Not only would it hurt Twitter, but it could also encourage users to jump to nascent right-leaning Twitter clones like Parler, Truth Social, and Gettr. “The lasting impact of the botched acquisition will be permanent, and Musk deserves credit for further exposing the incurable, rotten, politically biased culture within Blue Bird,” Gettr CEO Jason Miller said in a statement Friday.
