IIn a dispute about an upcoming court date for the planned Twitter takeover by Elon Musk, the Tesla boss prevailed against the short message service. The responsible judge in the US state of Delaware ordered the proceedings to be suspended until October 28, court documents showed on Thursday. This should be enough time to complete the acquisition. Musk had requested exactly this step and said the banks were working together to secure the financing of the deal. Twitter, on the other hand, had asked the court to open the proceedings on October 17 as planned. Musk’s proposal invites “further mischief and delays.”
According to Judge Kathleen McCormick, if Musk has not completed the roughly $44 billion takeover of the short message service by October 28, the parties to the dispute will have to prepare for a new trial in November.
Fronts further hardened
Musk surprisingly confirmed his original offer for Twitter on Tuesday, paving the way for a spectacular turnaround in the tough takeover dispute. The Tesla boss had actually declared the April purchase agreement invalid in July because Twitter had allegedly given false information about the number of fake accounts on its platform. However, the company insisted on compliance with the purchase agreement and went to court. A five-day trial in Delaware was actually scheduled for mid-October.
Despite Musk’s change of heart, the fronts have continued to harden. The star entrepreneur and Twitter are still at odds over important details that need to be worked out in order to finalize the deal. Instead of a rapprochement, there have recently been new attacks, so there is still uncertainty about the conclusion of the transaction. Musk’s attorneys on Thursday filed a motion to halt and dismiss the case. Twitter immediately submitted a counter-motion in which the company clearly denied this. The judge then set a deadline for the parties to the dispute to clarify the differences.
According to Twitter, Musk has so far kept a back door open to exiting the deal by making the acquisition dependent on financing. The company is suspicious and wants to secure the deal first before the legal dispute is completely settled. Meanwhile, Musk was already on a confrontational course again: “Twitter does not take a yes as an answer,” says the court application. “Amazingly, they insist on going ahead with the proceedings.” Twitter is thus jeopardizing the deal and jeopardizing the interests of its own shareholders.
In the counter-motion, the lawyers for the online platform made it clear that Musk no longer trusted him after months of maneuvering to cancel the purchase. The obstacle isn’t that Twitter won’t take a “yes” for an answer, but that Musk still refuses to stand by his contractual purchase commitments. Musk wants to implement a plan that allows him, based on certain reservations, to delay the conclusion of the deal at will and to obtain legal certainty in the event of a failure.
