-Report by Apurva Jain
Twitter has employed a prime house to take legal action against Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk for terminating a $44 billion takeover deal. Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz LLP, an oversized New York-based house has been hired to sue Musk, according to the Hill. Twitter has filed a lawsuit in Delaware. Musk has hired Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan for his defense.
Musk had proclaimed the termination of a $44 billion Twitter purchase via a letter sent by Musk’s team to Twitter. The reason for the suspension was multiple breaches of the purchase agreement.
In April, Musk entered into a purchase agreement with Twitter at $54.20 per share in a deal worth $44 billion. This transaction was, however, put on hold by Musk in May to permit his team to review the truthfulness of Twitter’s claim that less than five% of accounts on the platform are bots or spam.
Musk had threatened to walk away from the agreement for not being provided with the data on spam and pretend accounts in the month of June. He even alleged that his right to information was being violated and all he demands is the information proving that bots and pretend accounts represent less than 5% of the platform’s active user base.
The Delaware judge has agreed to fast-track the case by giving a date in the month of October much to the disappointment of Elon Musk who had asked for a date in February. Twitter’s lawyer claimed that Musk is obligated to finalize the agreement within two days of all closing conditions which will be met in September. It was further contended that Twitter only needs 4 days to prove that Musk needs to honor the agreement. The shares of Twitter that had fallen in May when the agreement was kept on hold saw a rise after the order of the court. Elon Musk’s advocates stood on the argument that Twitter had breached the agreement and there was no need to fast forward the trial. The court decided that the trial will be held during the fall.