ABC News Today

Elon Musk is reportedly seeking documents from some leading ad tech companies to bolster his efforts to walk away from his $44 million deal to acquire Twitter (NYSE: TWTR).

According to a report by ReutersMusk’s lawyers have cited Integral Ad Science (IAS) and DoubleVerify (DV) for documents showing how these companies have participated in the account review and any role they play in the Twitter audit (TWTR) user base numbers.

The issue of the number of fake, spam, or bot accounts on Twitter ( TWTR ) is central to Musk’s argument that he has the right to back out of the deal he struck to acquire Twitter ( TWTR ) for $54.20 a share. Musk has said that Twitter ( TWTR ) has not been completely up and open about how many of its users are actually fake or spam accounts, and has argued that it has the right to cancel the acquisition as a result.

Musk is seeking documentation from IAS ( IAS ) and DoubleVerify ( DV ), as those companies’ technologies are used to verify that digital ads are being seen by real people instead of automated ones.

Twitter ( TWTR ) sued Musk over the terms of the acquisition, and a trial is expected to be held in Delaware on Oct. 17. Musk has countersued Twitter ( TWTR ), arguing that the company’s monetizable daily active users [mDAUs] are much lower than what Twitter (TWTR) has disclosed.

Last week, Musk revealed that he had recently sold $7 billion worth of Tesla ( TSLA ) stock in a move that fueled speculation that a deal to acquire Twitter ( TWTR ) was increasingly likely, and possibly at a lowest selling price.