Twitter and Elon Musk once again found themselves back to back in a rehearing in Delaware court on September 6. The transcript released the next day reveals that the billionaire failed to secure a postponement of the October trial, but was cleared to add accusations from former Twitter security chief Peiter ‘Mudge’. Zatko to his arguments.
Time, ally or enemy
Elon Musk tries to buy time, but fails. In July, his lawyers tried to obtain a trial in February 2023, without success. They tried their luck again, taking advantage of the revelations of Peiter Zatko, to gain a few precious weeks, another failure.
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Judge Kathaleen McCormick explained that she was convinced ” that even a four-week delay would risk causing Twitter additional damage too great to be justified “. She recalled that ” The company was forced for months to manage under the constraints of a repudiated merger agreement “, note The Verge.
Elon Musk’s Defense wanted to buy time to analyze Peiter Zatko’s allegations. The former security chief of Twitter, fired in January, filed a complaint in August against his ex-employer with several American agencies. He denounced several shortcomings of the social network in terms of data protection and security in general. He also said that its leaders lied to Elon Musk about the number of fake accounts on the platform.
Blessed bread for Musk, who is trying to have his acquisition of Twitter for 44 billion dollars canceled, precisely on the basis of this argument of fake accounts. Peiter Zatko offers the possibility of exploring new fields of arguments to justify his withdrawal.
Twitter is not inert in the face of Musk’s posturing
It is the victory of the lawyers of the billionaire: the judge accepted that they exploit this information. She allowed them to retrieve some additional documents and called additional witnesses. A good point for Elon Musk, even if Parag Agrawal quickly strongly denied the accusations of the former security chief in an internal memo.
The social network does not remain inactive in the face of the actions of Elon Musk. Twitter intends to insist on the correlation between inflation, which has dented the wealth of the billionaire, and the expression of first doubts about the agreement coming from the owner of Tesla. Many allies of the latter have been summoned to appear in order to prove this thesis.
The confrontation of these two stories will begin well on October 17, in Delaware.