A judge has set up a hearing for Twitter‘s request to speed up trial in his lawsuit against billionaire Tesla Director Elon Musk.
The social media giant is trying to keep Musk, the world’s richest person, from its $44 billion deal with them.
They started their lawsuit after he alleged that he had wrongly canceled the buyout of the social media platform.
Twitter says they need just four days to prove that he should be forced to honor his agreement.
The company hopes to begin the trial without a jury on Sept. 19, but legal experts have predicted it will take two weeks to go to trial.
Now Twitter is seeking a court order to force Musk to buy the company for $54.20 a share, as agreed in the April 25 merger agreement.
District Judge Kathaleen McCormick, the Chancellor of the Delaware’s Court of Chancery, has set a 90-minute hearing beginning at 11 a.m. Wilmington.
Alex Spiro, one of Musk’s attorneys in the case, did not immediately respond to DailyMail.com’s request for comment.
Tesla CEO withdrew from the $44 billion buyout, with the social media giant suing in an attempt to get him to honor his offer
Judge Kathaleen McCormick, the first female chancellor in the Delaware Chancery Court’s 229-year history, has scheduled a hearing next Tuesday at 11 a.m. to hear the arguments in Delaware for an expedited trial
Last week, Musk said he was terminating the buyout deal over concerns about bots and fake accounts.
He responded to the lawsuit with a tweet explaining that his use of the colorful emoji was short for “BS,” a commonly used abbreviation for “bulls**t.”
Twitter’s legal complaint includes the billionaire’s tweet containing the poo emoji.
The lawsuit filed Tuesday includes citing Musk’s May 16 tweet as evidence that he publicly discredited Twitter, in violation of the merger agreement, before fully withdrawing from the deal.
Musk’s tweet featuring the laughing poop emoji was in response to Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, who had sent several tweets explaining the company’s procedures to fight spam and fake accounts, a battle Agrawal described as “dynamic.”
In another tweet on May 17, Musk appeared to encourage the SEC to investigate the veracity of Twitter’s public disclosures.
His online posts are presented as proof that he pursued the takeover “in bad faith.”
But the crux of Twitter’s argument is that the richest man in the world is bound by the deal to buy the company he signed on April 25.
The lawsuit states that the deal does not include a contingency that would require Musk to secure funding.
It adds that the billionaire has waived the customary right to due diligence, which refers to the kind of corporate fundamentals investigation he later conducted regarding fake accounts.
Twitter shares rose nearly 8 percent to $36.75 on Wednesday, a sign that investors view the company’s lawsuit as likely to succeed.
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives wrote in a note obtained by DailyMail.com that “many investors read the matter last night and have finally concluded that this Game of Thrones battle in court will result in a version of a Twitter win.”
He wrote: “This is going to be a fierce battle in court with the fake account/bot issue at the forefront, but in the end, the board of Twitter Musk is fighting to close the deal at the agreed price.”
Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal sent out several tweets explaining how the company is fighting spam and fake accounts in an online battle with Musk
Twitter’s lawsuit includes a screenshot of the billionaire responding to his CEO with the poo emoji, saying it’s evidence he discredited the company in violation of the buyout agreement
Musk responded to the lawsuit with a tweet explaining that his use of the colorful emoji was short for ‘BS’
The lawsuit says Musk “refuses to honor his obligations to Twitter and its shareholders because the deal he signed no longer serves his personal interests.”
Twitter’s lawyers said the company was given little time to comply with Musk’s demands for information on fake accounts, arguing that they suspected he was trying to use the data to form a competitor.
It reads: “Twitter continued to remain committed to its commitment to bring about the merger and continued to try to get Musk’s team what it demanded, while protecting its customers’ data and harboring very real concerns about how Musk would use the data. could use if he managed to escape the deal.
Twitter has gone to great lengths to provide Musk with the information he’s asked for, including, most notably, the entire ‘firehose’ dataset he’s been mining for weeks — and has continued to mine since he claimed to stop — with the help of undisclosed data reviewers,’
Lawyers for the social media giant argued that if the company continued to bow to Musk’s demands, it would “expose Twitter to competitive harm.”
They added that despite saying he would pull out of the deal, Musk has reportedly continued to mine Twitter’s confidential data.