Can Twitter and Elon Musk agree on a takeover without a trial? What sounds rather unlikely, but should be given another chance. For this reason, a judge is suspending the planned process and a deadline for the takeover by the entrepreneur.
After Elon Musk’s surprising new commitment to buy Twitter, the court case over the takeover has been halted for the time being. The responsible judge Kathleen McCormick decided on Thursday (local time). This means that the trial scheduled for October 17 is off the table for the time being. However, McCormick placed the pause in the proceedings under clear conditions: 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.
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 moved to have the case halted and the case dismissed. 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 getting out of 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 they no longer trusted Musk 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.
