Twitter-Musk takeover bid trial in October
A US judge has ordered that Twitter’s lawsuit against Elon Musk go to trial in October, a blow to the world’s richest man who had asked for a delay.
Mr Musk walked away from his $44billion (Sh5.2 trillion) bid to buy Twitter earlier in July, prompting the company to sue him.
Twitter hopes that the court will order Mr Musk to complete the takeover at the agreed price of $54.20 per share.
The tech billionaire has accused Twitter of withholding information about fake accounts. His legal team has called for the trial to be held early next year due to its complexities, but Twitter asked for a September date.
On Tuesday, a judge in the state of Delaware agreed with the company and said a delay to the trial would cast a “cloud of uncertainty”
To buy or not to buy?
“Delay threatens irreparable harm,” Chancellor Kathaleen St Jude McCormick said. “The longer the delay, the greater the risk.” The lawsuit accused Mr Musk of a “long list” of violations ahead of the potential merger and argued that he had “cast a pall” over the company.
At the hearing on Tuesday, Twitter’s lead counsel William Savitt said the ongoing uncertainty about whether the takeover would go forward or not “inflicts harm on Twitter everyday”.
There is a theory that Musk still wants to buy Twitter, he’s just trying to knock down the price.
If that’s the case, his lawyers are spectacularly good poker players.
Mr Musk’s legal team wanted this trial to happen next year. They claimed they needed more time to dig through data on spam accounts. Clearly though this is also a stalling strategy.
They repeated Mr Musk’s assertion that Twitter may have more fake accounts than it claims.
That is a hugely damaging accusation - and a strange thing to say if Mr Musk were still interested in purchasing the company at a lower price.
Twitter’s reputation has already taken a huge hit. Twitter’s revenues are almost entirely based on ads. The fewer real people on the platform, the less money it can make. Bots don’t have wallets
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