Court Showdown Between Twitter And Elon Musk Has Officially Begun
The Twitter and Elon Musk saga continues. The whole debacle has now entered the courts and it hadn't been pretty.
This article is more than 2 years old
The saga between Twitter and Elon Musk continues to unfold. Following his agreement to purchase Twitter, it seemed as though Musk found every reason in the book not to go through with the deal. As a result, Twitter is taking Musk to court in order to force him to follow through on the deal that he both created and committed to. Needless to say, perhaps expectedly, things have not been going so smoothly on the legal front either.
As of Tuesday, a judge ruled that the Twitter-Musk battle would go to trial for 5 days in October of this year. There was somewhat of a courtroom battle that ensued at the hearing prior to the ruling though. According to CNN, both Elon Musk’s and Twitter’s lawyer engaged in heated counterarguments. Twitter lawyer William Savitt addressed the court by stating that Musk’s whole charade “inflicts harm on Twitter every day”
“Musk has been and remains contractually obligated to use his best efforts to close this deal. What he’s doing is the exact opposite; it’s sabotage,” fumed Savitt. In defense of Elon Musk, his lawyer Andrew Rossman said that the billionaire is not looking to drag out the upcoming court battle. Rossman also coyly pointed to the fact that it was only when Musk decided to kill the purchase deal that Twitter decided to escalate the issue to a court trial.
Interestingly enough, the dispute at the Twitter versus Elon Musk hearing didn’t have anything to do with either party not wanting to go to trial, but with the timeframe they wanted the trial to occur in. Ideally, Musk wants the case to go to trial at the beginning of 2023. Twitter wants it heard as early as September. Delaware Court of Chancery chancellor Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick, who ruled at the hearing, sided with Twitter. This resulted in a tentative October trial date. The judge reasoned that delaying the trial until the start of the year could be exceedingly debilitating for Twitter. “The reality is that delay threatens irreparable harm [to Twitter] … the longer the delay, the greater the risk,” said Judge McCormick.
McCormick’s logic is now flawed. Twitter has had its fair share of woes arise as a direct result of Musk’s antics. CNN pointed to the fact that Twitter is having difficulty in further scaling its user base and securing deals that would boost its ad revenue. The whole Musk debacle served to stall any momentum gained in those areas. Now, with the economy in a questionable place, Twitter might not be able to recoup any of the prior improvements they had made.
Meanwhile, as Musk tries to circumnavigate his commitment, Twitter is continuing to pull out all the stops to make good on the purchase deal that Musk initiated. That being said, that’s more than likely so that the social media giant can cover all of their legal bases. At this point, it remains unclear what the official trial will hold for either party, but considering the high tensions present at the initial hearing when the trial does commence it should prove to be interesting at the very least.
