Elon Musk Seeks To Block Twitter’s Request For Speedy Trial

The Elon Musk and Twitter showdown continues, with the former seeking to block the platform’s request for a speedy trial.

According to Reuters, Elon Musk filed a motion on Friday opposing Twitter’s request to fast-track a trial over his decision to terminate the $44 billion deal for the social media firm.

Twitter had repeatedly warned Elon Musk it would enforce the deal he signed, and insisted his justifications of Twitter’s material breaches of the deal, were “false and misleading representations” statements.

Musk motion

Reuters reported that Musk’s lawyers argued, in papers filed with the Delaware Chancery Court, that Twitter’s “unjustifiable request” to rush the merger case to trial in two months should be rejected.

Twitter had sued Elon Musk last week, and the social media platform had requested the trial begin in September because the merger agreement with Musk terminates on 25 October.

“Twitter’s sudden request for warp speed after two months of foot-dragging and obfuscation is its latest tactic to shroud the truth about spam accounts long enough to railroad defendants into closing,” Musk’s filing reportedly stated.

Musk’s lawyers have argued the dispute over false and spam accounts is fundamental to Twitter’s value and extremely fact- and expert-intensive.

Twitter has defended its spam policy on multiple occansions and said it suspends more than 1 million spam accounts a day – up from it when CEO Parag Agrawal, said in May that spam account suspensions were running at 500,000 a day.

Twitter reportedly has a specialist team and automated processes dedicated to weeding out fake accounts, and last month it began providing access for Musk to the colossal firehose of public tweet data.

Twitter had in April this year said that less than 5 percent of Twitter users are spam or fake accounts.

Musk however believes the true figure of fake or bot accounts is closer to 20 percent or more.

February 2023

Musk’s legal team told the court they would require substantial time for discovery and requested a trial date on or after 13 February 2023.

The debt financing package committed by banks for Musk’s acquisition expires in April 2023, Reuters reported.

That means if the trial began in February and did not finish by April, the deal could collapse.

Twitter declined to comment on Musk’s latest motion.