Twitter is shooting back at Elon Musk’s attempt to postpone the trial

Elon Musk and Twitter continued the sparring on Monday, while the social media company hit back at the Tesla boss̵[ads1]7; request for a slower trial schedule. Musk is trying to end a deal he has previously made to buy Twitter and take it privately for $ 54.20 per share, or around $ 44 billion.

Musk has repeatedly accused Twitter of lying about the number of bot and spam accounts on the platform. Twitter has denied the allegations and is suing to force Musk to complete the deal.

Twitter wants to go to court as early as September, but Musk had asked the Delaware court to deny the request for an expedited trial and aim for next year. Musk needed time, his lawyers argued, to make exhaustive amounts of discoveries about whether the company misrepresented the amount of spam and bot accounts on the platform.

In Monday’s submission, Twitter accused Musk of using delay tactics to harm the company in the opinion court.

“The date of the earliest possible trial is crucial,” the company’s lawyers wrote. “This very public dispute hurts Twitter with each passing day Musk is in breach. Musk amplifies this damage by using the company’s own platform as a megaphone to degrade it.”

Twitter’s lawyers noted in their submission, “Millions of Twitter shares are traded daily under a cloud of Musk-created doubt. No public company of this size and scale has ever had to bear these uncertainties.”

The Chancellor in charge of the case, Kathaleen St. J. McCormick, informed the parties on Monday that she has Covid. Instead of postponing the hearing on the trial plan, she said they would hold one via teleconference (using Zoom) on Tuesday 19 July.