Twitter’s lawsuit against Elon Musk goes to trial in October, A Delaware judge ruled
the trial will last for five days in October, giving Twitter an early victory in its legal
battle against the Tesla CEO.
Mr. Musk walked away from his $44bn (£36bn) bid to buy Twitter earlier in July,
prompting the company to sue him.
Twitter hopes that the court will order Mr Musk to complete the takeover at the
agreed price of $54.20 per share.
The tech billionaire has accused Twitter of withholding information about fake
accounts.
His legal team has called for the trial to be held early next year due to its
complexities, but Twitter asked for a September date.
On Tuesday, a judge in the state of Delaware agreed with the company and said a
delay to the trial would cast a “cloud of uncertainty”.
“Delay threatens irreparable harm,” Chancellor Kathaleen St Jude McCormick said.
“The longer the delay, the greater the risk.”
The lawsuit accused Mr Musk of a “long list” of violations ahead of the potential
merger and argued that he had “cast a pall” over the company.
At the hearing on Tuesday, Twitter’s lead counsel William Savitt said the ongoing
uncertainty about whether the takeover would go forward or not “inflicts harm on
Twitter everyday”.
There is a theory that Musk still wants to buy Twitter, he’s just trying to knock down
the price.
If that’s the case, his lawyers are spectacularly good poker players.
Mr Musk’s legal team wanted this trial to happen next year.
Read Also:Twitter sues Elon Musk over $44bn takeover deal
They claimed they needed more time to dig through data on spam accounts. Clearly
though this is also a stalling strategy.
They repeated Mr Musk’s assertion that Twitter may have more fake accounts than it
claims.
That is a hugely damaging accusation – and a strange thing to say if Mr Musk were
still interested in purchasing the company at a lower price.
Twitter’s reputation has already taken a huge hit. Twitter’s revenues are almost
entirely based on ads. The fewer real people on the platform, the less money it can
make. Bots don’t have wallets.
That’s why Twitter wants this process sorted quickly. By far the best case scenario for
the company is that Mr Musk buys it for $54.20 a share – and that it happens as soon
as possible.
That’s why this judgement is good news for Twitter. The judge sided with Twitter’s
lawyers – that a ruling needed to be reached quickly.
It heaps more pressure on Mr Musk, who is faced with the bizarre prospect of having
to buy a company he no longer wishes to acquire.
However, in practice this will likely put more pressure on Mr Musk to settle, pay
Twitter some money, and move on.
