Twitter, Musk lock horns over US$ 44bn deal as trial set for October
Twitter's lawsuit seeking to hold Elon Musk to his $44-billion takeover will go to trial in October, a judge ruled recently as it adopted a schedule closer to the proposal by the social media giants.
"The continued uncertainty inflicts harm to Twitter every hour of every day," said William Savitt, an attorney for Twitter, at the hearing that was being conducted remotely after the judge, Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick, tested positive recently for COVID-19.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. The San Francisco-based company is seeking to resolve months of uncertainty for its business as Musk tries to walk away from the deal over what he says are Twitter's "spam" accounts that he says are fundamental to its value.
Twitter has asked McCormick of Delaware's Court of Chancery to find Musk breached the merger agreement and to order him to complete the merger at the agreed price of $54.20 per share.
Twitter wanted an expedited trial in September because it said Musk is smearing Twitter and undermining operations by refusing to approve business initiatives, such as an employee retention plan.
The company said adopting Musk's "slow walk" proposal for a February trial leaves little time for additional litigation over deal financing if Musk is ordered to close. The deal financing expires in April.
A lawyer for Musk blamed Twitter for dragging its feet in responding to Musk's requests for information regarding the methods for calculating the number of spam accounts and he said an expedited trial will prevent the truth from coming to light.
"When Mr. Musk started asking questions, the answers he got were alarming," said Andrew Rossman, Musk's lawyer. He said it will take months to analyse massive amounts of data to resolve Musk's questions about Twitter's spam accounts.
Rossman also pushed back on the notion that Musk was trying to harm Twitter, pointing out the billionaire held a larger stake than the combined holdings of the directors of Twitter.
Twitter's stock has slumped from above $50 a share when the deal was announced to as low as $32.55 last week in the USA.
Comments