Legal experts said the ruling in Delaware was good news for Twitter, which had requested a September start date for a trial. Twitter is seeking a legal ruling that would force Musk to go ahead with an agreed transaction that values the company at $54.20 a share. Musk pulled out of the deal this month, citing concerns about the number of spam accounts on the social media platform. “This is a good sign for Twitter,” said Robert Frenchman, a partner at New York law firm Mukasey Frenchman. “The last thing Twitter wants is a protracted struggle to count and combat spam bots, issues that are only tangentially related to whether Twitter breached its obligations under the stock purchase agreement.” Commenting on the decision, Brian Quinn, a professor at Boston College Law School, said: “This is a win for Twitter. The court allowed the posting, not quite on Twitter’s very aggressive schedule, but pretty close. October for the trial is not that far away and the lawyers will have a lot to do to prepare for the trial.” A lawyer representing Twitter accused Musk of “attempted sabotage” at the hearing, which was held virtually. “He’s doing his best to destroy Twitter,” said attorney William Savitt, who represents Twitter in Delaware District Court before the Kathaleen St. Chancery Court. Jude McCormick in a mock audition. Musk alleged that the company failed to provide sufficient information about the number of fake or “spam bot” Twitter accounts and that it breached its obligations under the agreement by firing top executives and laying off a significant number of employees. But the idea that the Tesla CEO is trying to hurt Twitter is “preposterous. He has no interest in harming the company,” said Musk’s lawyer Andrew Rossman, noting that he is Twitter’s second-largest shareholder with a much larger stake than the entire board. Savitt stressed the importance of a fast-track trial starting in September so Twitter can make important business decisions that affect everything from employee retention to relationships with suppliers and customers. Rossman said it takes longer because it is “one of the largest take-private deals in history” involving a “company that has a huge amount of data that needs to be analyzed. Billions of actions on their platform need to be analyzed.”
