On Monday, a Delaware judge will hear arguments in the Twitter lawsuits against Elon Musk, a tech billionaire. The lawsuits seek to hold Musk accountable for a $44 billion deal. Twitter’s lawyers want to try to force Musk to stop stealing money and reinvest it in the company, so they have asked the judge to set a September trial date. The hearing will last 90 minutes and will be conducted according to the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Elon Musk’s lawyers
Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s lawyers are firing back in a judge’s courtroom following Twitter’s filing for the first hearing on their lawsuit. Musk had threatened to walk away from the deal to buy Twitter for $44 billion after the stock price of his company dropped in recent months. Twitter accused Musk of using the “bot problem” as a pretext to back out of the deal. Musk’s lawyers also claimed that Twitter fumed about the number of fake accounts that they alleged were behind the acquisition. They also argued that Twitter had breached their agreement not to publicly insult the company’s employees and executives, as well as their own obligations to use reasonable efforts to complete the deal.
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The Twitter lawsuits against Musk’s lawyers were filed after Musk’s company fired two “high-level” employees. The company also laid off its talent acquisition team and implemented a general hiring freeze. Musk’s lawyers claimed that Twitter breached their contract when the “market started turning,” and asked for a trial date in September. As Twitter’s stock has dropped in the past months, the company filed the lawsuits against Musk’s lawyers in the Delaware court of chancery.
Twitter’s lawyers
A judge is set to set the first hearing in Twitter lawsuits against Elon Mohs and his lawyers, which allege that they reneged on the $44 billion buyout of Twitter. Twitter officials claim that Musk has violated the merger agreement by sending spam to the social network’s users. Twitter declined to comment on the matter, but pointed to its initial complaint filed Tuesday.
A recent tweet from Musk mocking Twitter’s direction and management, and his repeated disparagement of Twitter’s services, have fueled the debate about whether the company’s policies on spam are in conflict with free speech. The companies are prohibited by law from controlling what users post on their platforms, and Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act protects them from such actions. Twitter, on the other hand, hasn’t yet acquired any Twitter stock from Musk, but its lawyers have made it clear they intend to fight the case.
Court of Chancery
The latest Twitter lawsuit has been filed against Elon Musk. The company accused Musk of violating a merger agreement after he responded to Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal in May with a poop emoji. Twitter lawyers countered that Musk had not lied about the proportion of fake accounts on the site, and that the company had deliberately withheld details of the deal to make the acquisition work. The Twitter lawyers argued that Musk had given them little time to comply with the terms of the deal, and that he had hoped to use the information to create a rival. The court has set a trial date for September, but Musk has requested that the case be adjourned until February.
A Delaware court has heard similar cases involving Musk. The Court of Chancery is a non-jury court that mainly hears corporate cases. While the Court of Chancery does not rule on individual cases, there are several precedents in which a specific performance clause was used to force a sale. While Musk is unlikely to be allowed to ignore a court order, he may have to pay a high price to withdraw from the Twitter deal.