Elon Musk, Twitter To Head To Court In October

Elon Musk basically took over the news back in April with his shenanigans with Twitter, going from largest shareholder to nearly being owner. Less than a month later, he puts the deal on hold over allegedly inaccurate bot numbers, before finally terminating the acquisition deal earlier this month. Twitter is naturally unhappy, taking legal action to make the Tesla owner go through with the deal. Now, it looks like the two parties will meet in court in October.

Musk previously pushed for the trial to be held in February instead “to allow for an extensive investigation” into his spam account claims, according to Reuters. Twitter, on the other hand, claims that delaying the trial into next year “could threaten deal financing”, initially asking for the trial to be held in September.

The report also quotes Twitter lawyer William Savitt as saying that Musk had buyers remorse, and so used the issue of bot accounts to “conjure an exit ramp for a deal that doesn’t have one. It’s not that outlandish a claim, considering Musk used the reason to put the deal on hold so shortly after agreeing to the acquisition deal in the first place. According to The Verge, the social media platform’s lawyers also accuse Musk of engaging in “needless value destruction”.

On the flip side, Musk’s lawyers say that an early trial would allow Twitter to “hide the truth about spam accounts”. They also rebut the “needless value destruction” claim by pointing out that he is still the largest shareholder of the social media platform, holding a larger stake than all the directors’ holdings combined.

The judge, Chancedllor Kathaleen McCormick, says that the trial will last five days, though the exact dates have yet to be scheduled. Similar to when the trial will be taking place, a five-day trial is longer than what Twitter asked for, but shorter than what Elon Musk wanted.

(Source: Reuters, The Verge)