--- title: "Elon Musk’s Lawyers Accidentally Sent an Incredibly Sensitive Email to the Wrong People, Then Demanded They Delete It" description: "When buying Twitter, Elon Musk's team sent a bunch of people the wrong finance spreadsheet — and then made them delete it." date: "2024-09-11" modified: "2024-09-11" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-lawyers-twitter-email" categories: - "Elon Musk" - "Future Society" - "The Industrialists" tags: - "elon musk" - "investors" - "the digest" - "twitter" --- # Elon Musk’s Lawyers Accidentally Sent an Incredibly Sensitive Email to the Wrong People, Then Demanded They Delete It ![When buying Twitter, Elon Musk's team sent a bunch of people the wrong finance spreadsheet — and then made them delete it.]() *\Image: Gotham / GC Images via Getty\* ## Don't Look Back in Anger In the midst of his [chaotic purchase of Twitter](), Elon Musk's attorneys accidentally sent a bunch of people the wrong email about his financial backing — and then aggressively demanded the recipients delete it. As New *York Times* reporters Kate Conger and Ryan Mac [note in a *Vanity Fair*-published excerpt]() from their new book about the Twitter buyout, the billionaire's team made the massive gaffe while it was still unclear whether Musk was actually going to pull off the sale. "At one point, Musk’s lawyers... accidentally sent Twitter’s finance team a full spreadsheet of all the people and investment firms from which they solicited money," Conger and Mac wrote in "Character Limit," their forthcoming book about the deal. "That screwup was immediately followed by a legal threat to the Twitter recipients to delete the email and its contents." Around the same time as the deal was in limbo in mid-2022, Twitter's financial officers had, as the book notes, developed a dark way to handle the uncertainty of Musk's closing. "Members of Twitter’s finance teams had adopted a gallows humor approach to the deal," the reporters described, "and made a joke of trying to track Musk’s money." ## Money Troubles Though the sale obviously went through in the end, Mac and Conger's portrait of the anxiety on the Twitter side of the deal shows that there was perhaps even less confidence behind the scenes of the deal than there was in skeptical media coverage. While buyers in a normal takeover are generally transparent about where their money is coming from, Musk was no such beast. Instead, he "dumped all the funds into a single account so that Twitter couldn't trace their origin." There was even a possibility that the world's richest man might defy courts by simply saying he couldn't foot the bill — remember, Musk [got cold feet and fought]() not to go through with the disastrous acquisition. During a call discussing the deal, Musk's consigliere Antonio Gracias, a private equity investor, told Twitter executives that Musk was missing $400 million and needed the company to front him the money so he could close the deal, essentially relying on them to trust that he was good for it. When the executives were reportedly "dumbfounded" by the ask and denied it, Gracias then decided to "pull a mafioso move." "'You’re not going to wire me the fucking money?'" the private equity buff said. "'Are you saying no to Elon Musk?'" **More on the Twitter buyout:** [*One of Elon Musk’s Major Twitter Investors Has Been Accused of Sex Trafficking and Domestic Abuse*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()