Vince McMahon’s attorneys argued in court on Wednesday regarding the former WWE leader’s use of Signal and the disappeared messages.
McMahon and other WWE executives’ Signal conversations were the subject of a probe from plaintiffs in the WWE shareholder lawsuit. Wrestlenomics’ and POST Wrestling’s Brandon Thurston uncovered text messages from Mark Shapiro and Ari Emanuel that anticipated McMahon’s return from retirement in 2022 that would eventually lead to the merger that created TKO.
Plaintiffs argued that the deleted Signal messages reveal a 2022 meeting between Emanuel and McMahon. The WWE co-founder’s Signal use was highlighted through a 2023 text exchange between Nick Khan and McMahon, where Khan texted the word “Langis.” When McMahon asked what it meant, Khan responded: “Read it backwards!” This was an apparent reference to take their conversation to the Signal app.
On Wednesday, one of McMahon’s lawyers, Haley Stern of Kirkland & Ellis LLP, described their client as a “prolific texter” and that the 22,000 messages across multiple platforms were produced to investors, per Bloomberg Law’s Jennifer Kay. McMahon’s attorney added that there was no gap in communications to probe.
“McMahon’s attorneys preserved data from his personal devices, even after they were seized by federal authorities investigating sexual misconduct allegations against him, she said,” Kay wrote of Stern. “But Signal data sought by the investors wasn’t available for retrieval until after those devices were returned in October 2025.”
Khan testified in the shareholder lawsuit that part of the Department of Justice’s investigation into McMahon included possible violations of sex trafficking statutes, which undermined McMahon’s statement in 2025, stating consisted of “minor accounting errors”.
The plaintiffs argued that the apparent missing Signal chat messages could have been relevant to litigation.
“These parties negotiated this deal really the old-fashioned way,” said Eric Leon of Latham & Watkins LLP, representing other WWE executives. “They did it with dinners and lunches, and they did it over the phone, and we produced all of the phone records.”
Bloomberg Law noted that Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster, who adjourned Wednesday’s hearing without a motion, sanctioned former Facebook director Sheryl Sandberg on January 2-25 for intentionally deleting emails related to the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal. Meta Platforms Inc. settled the lawsuit against Sandberg, Mark Zuckerberg, and other senior leaders for $190 million.
The WWE shareholder lawsuit is scheduled to go to trial in June.
