Elon Musk calls hiring of law firm Perkins Coie a mistake by Twitter team

Twitter CEO Elon Musk said in an email to Reuters on Friday that hiring law firm Perkins Coie to defend the company in a federal lawsuit in California this week was a mistake he would not make. more.

Reuters earlier reported that lawyers for Perkins Coie appeared in court for Twitter in the case on Wednesday, even though Musk denounced the company on the social media platform, including in a tweet last month linked to his past work for former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. .

Musk’s email said the hiring of Perkins Coie was “an error on the part of a member of the Twitter team.”

“Perkins will not represent Twitter in future matters,” he said.

He did not immediately respond to follow-up questions on Friday, including whether Perkins Coie will remain as Twitter’s attorney in at least six other pre-Musk-owned lawsuits. A spokesperson for Perkins Coie did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Musk’s finger-pointing follows months of internal tension over Twitter’s legal staff and priorities since he acquired the company for $44 billion (roughly Rs. 3,37,465 crore) and took office. CEO in October.

Musk has fired Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s chief legal and policy officer, and other top executives as he seeks to undo what he criticized as past censorship and partisan bias within the company. .

Twitter has also shaken up its outside legal teams, with attorneys from Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan stepping in for other companies in several cases.

Musk tweeted Dec. 8 that Twitter “doesn’t use Perkins Coie” as an outside attorney and urged other companies to boycott the company. He chose a former Perkins Coie lawyer, Michael Sussmann, who advised Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign at the firm.

Sussmann was acquitted in May after denying federal charges that he falsely told the FBI he was not working for Clinton when he provided the agency with alleged evidence of cyber links between the Trump Organization and a bank based in Russia.

“No company should use them until they make amends for Sussmann’s attempt to bribe a presidential election,” Musk wrote in December, referring to Perkins Coie.

In May, Musk tweeted that Perkins Coie and another big law firm were made up of “white-shoe lawyers” who “thrive on corruption.”

The case that Perkins Coie signed for Twitter this week was brought last year by Laura Loomer, a far-right activist who was banned from the site in 2018.

The San Francisco lawsuit claims that social media giants, corporations and the US government conspired to “illegally censor conservative voices and interfere with US elections”. Twitter and its former CEO Jack Dorsey have denied the claims.

© Thomson Reuters 2023

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