Twitter on Monday pushed back against Elon Musk’s request to wait until early next year to hold a lawsuit that could force the billionaire to buy the social network, saying the world’s richest man is trying to “denigrate Twitter and prolong the litigation”. It’s the latest action in a dispute that began after Elon Musk tried to walk away from his $44 billion deal to acquire Twitter.
Highlights
- Twitter – which sued Elon Musk in Delaware state court last week – is pushing for an expedited trial in September, arguing in a Monday court filing that Musk’s request to hold a trial in February 2023 “fails at all levels” and is “calculated to complicate the situation”.
- Lawyers for Mr Musk say they will need months to complete the investigations leading up to an ‘extremely factually and expertly intensive’ trial to determine whether Twitter’s public claims about spam accounts are accurate, but the company on Monday called Mr. Musk’s questions about the prevalence of spam and fake accounts a “show unrelated to the contract.”
- The Twitter platform also said it needed a speedy trial because the developing dispute – much of which unfolded in tweets penned by Elon Musk – is hurting the company: “Millions of ‘Twitter shares are trading daily under a cloud of doubt created by Musk,’ Twitter’s attorneys wrote.
Key Context
Musk announced two weeks ago that he was ‘ending’ his offer to buy the social media platform at $54.20 a share, throwing havoc on a deal struck ten weeks ago between Mr. Musk and Twitter. The billionaire said he was pulling out of the deal because he believed Twitter had publicly downplayed the number of spam and fake accounts on his social network, and insisted Twitter had failed to provide enough data to back up his claims. The company quickly took legal action to force Musk into the deal. The company has argued that its estimates of fake accounts and spam accounts are not grounds for canceling the deal, and accused Musk of leading an “expedition” to get out of a deal that he is no longer interested in concluding.
Significant number
$230.8 billion. That’s the net worth of Elon Musk’s fortune as of Monday, making the Tesla and SpaceX CEO the richest person on the planet, according to Forbes estimates. However, the net worth of Mr. Musk’s fortune has declined somewhat in recent months, mainly due to the decline in Tesla’s stock price.
Article translated from Forbes US – Author: Joe Walsh
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