Twitter-Musk legal battle: Trial will commence in October - Court

Image: New York Post

As earlier reported that Elon Musk appealed to the court that the date of the Twitter trial be pushed to February, while Twitter insisted on an early trial; the case was held Tuesday to decide the trial date.

After the trial on Tuesday at a Delaware court, the court ruled in favour of Twitter. The court held that the trial date for the lawsuit will now be in October. The ruling is a win for Twitter, who had requested a shorter timeframe because the acquisition was billed for 24 October 2022; hence an earlier date would favour the agreement.

Today, a Delaware court ruled that Twitter’s lawsuit against Elon Musk for attempting to back out of his acquisition of the company will be held in October. This is a win for Twitter, which asked for a shorter timeframe than Musk.

Earlier, we reported that Musk had an agreement to acquire Twitter for $44 billion in April but decided to back out of the deal. According to him, Twitter had too many bots that informed his decision to pull the plug on the deal. However, he had the right to do his “due diligence” or research the micro-blogging company properly before agreeing to buy, but he was set to have waived the right. Trying to terminate the acquisition agreement led Twitter to respond with a lawsuit to prevent him from backing out of the contract.

While having an oral argument before the judge, Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick, Twitter held that Musk’s bot arguments were bad-faith attempts to release himself from the deal due to an acute case of buyer’s remorse. Twitter initially requested that the trial date should be in September, but Musk demanded February. 

Twitter requested a shorter and speedy trial, while Musk favoured a longer one. However, from the ruling, it will be a five-day trial that is shorter than Musk’s request and longer than Twitter’s. Meanwhile, the exact dates are yet to be set; whether it would come before the 24 October takeover or after is a matter to be decided later.

At the court yesterday, Twitter’s counsel said Musk’s conduct was “inexcusable.” Musk has held up an employee retention plan and is engaging in “needless value destruction.” 

In response, Musk’s lawyers suggested that Twitter was deceiving Musk with bot data. 

However, both legal counsels agreed that Musk’s team had run millions of queries on Twitter’s firehose, a real-time feed of Tweets as they are sent. Regarding the Twitter lawsuit, Musk’s lawyers revealed that The New York Times got a copy of it before they did.

After the court resumed after a 10-minute recess, McCormick said delaying the trial further would cause more hard on Twitter than envisaged. Hence, to avoid such, she set a date for October, which is not too late for Twitter for all they needed to do. She added that she was full of confidence that both legal teams would deliver as expected at the October trial.

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