Twitter and Tesla CEO Elon Musk will head to trial for five days in October, Chancellor Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick ruled this morning during a virtual hearing.
The Delaware Court of Chancery ruled that the trial between the Tesla frontman and the social media platform must be expedited to avoid additional irreparable harm, USLaw said, who live Tweeted the developments of the hearing this morning. Twitter attorney William Savitt also stated that an expedited trial was important as the platform needs a decision to be handed down promptly due to important business decisions affecting employee retention or relationships with suppliers or customers, ABC News said.
Twitter and Musk’s attorneys went back and forth for over an hour, with the platform’s lawyers arguing that Musk did his best to “run Twitter down,” making his conduct a “willful breach” of the two parties’ agreement. Musk and his attorneys continued to point toward Twitter’s representation of its bot population, which the defendants believe is well above the 5 percent that was outlined in recent SEC filings. SEC disclosures stated Twitter has an estimation process to determine its bot population, but it could be false.
Musk’s attorneys also argued that Twitter’s idea that he may be trying to damage the company is “preposterous.” Andrew Rossman, who made the claim, brought up the fact that Musk would not be keen on damaging a company where he is the second-largest shareholder. Musk holds a significantly larger holding of Twitter than any current member of the company’s board.
Musk also wished to push the trial to sometime in 2023, but McCormick ruled that the ultimate ruling with require a five-day October courtroom trial. McCormick did not agree with Musk’s arguments, USLaw stated, and did not feel that an October trial was too fast or too hard to accomplish, nor did she feel Musk’s team needed until April 2023 to conduct a proper analysis of Twitter’s bot population.
The trial can be extended by five days if reasonably required.
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