A US court has given Twitter an expedited five-day hearing that will begin on October 17 after the billionaire announced on July 8 that he was withdrawing his $44 billion offer for the social media business. Twitter said that the prolonged legal issue was harming its ability to do business, thus it wanted the matter to be heard in September.
On July 11, its shares reached a low of $32.65, significantly below the $54.20 Mr. Musk had proposed paying for the business back in April. The Court of Chancery of Delaware’s Chancellor Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick stated: “Irreparable damage is a danger from delay. The danger increases with the length of the wait.”
Due to the difficulty of the case, Mr. Musk’s team wanted to delay the trial until the beginning of 2023. His representatives claimed that Twitter had violated the terms of the purchase agreement by denying them the opportunity to “perform an independent evaluation of the frequency of false or spam accounts,” among other things.
Palantir Technologies co-founder Joe Lonsdale tweeted that he had gotten a subpoena and called the demands a “giant annoying fishing expedition.” According to court documents, the social media business sent subpoenas on major banks and other parties involved in the deal’s funding.
Reuters was informed by Professor Minor Myers of the UConn School of Law that Twitter believes “that he has been plotting behind the scenes to blow the entire thing up.”
“It is an effort at sabotage. He’s working hard to undermine Twitter “William Savitt, an attorney representing the social media firm, stated. The businessman alleges that the company didn’t provide him enough information on how many Twitter accounts were spam bots or bogus.
And he claims it violated its commitments by firing senior management and mass-firing employees. More details on the bot numbers are anticipated to surface during the trial court’s discovery phase, during which both parties are required to turn over evidence.
“Musk attempting to back out of agreement”
Twitter claims Musk is immediately attempting to pull out because he committed to pay 38% more than the price of Twitter’s shares immediately even before the stock market crashed.
Additionally, the stock of electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla, where the majority of his personal fortune is held, dropped more than $100 billion in value.
According to Mr. Savitt, “He’s betting on wiggling out of the arrangement he struck.” Musk’s attorney, Andrew Rossman, disagrees, calling the allegation that Elon Musk is trying to hurt Twitter “preposterous.” The billionaire, according to him, “has no incentive to hurt the firm.”
Source: Sky News