Twitter’s lawyers hit Elon Musk with extreme, blunt language Tuesday in opening arguments in the multibillion-dollar court case that will decide whether the world’s richest man will buy one of the Internet’s most prominent social networks, as he agreed months ago . “What we’re looking at is a buyer coming up with an exit plan,” Twitter’s lawyers said of the Tesla CEO’s multifaceted complaints. “Buyer’s remorse may be an overused phrase, your honor, but it sure looks like what we have here.” Musk’s lawyers wasted no time reacting, calling the company’s efforts to breach the termination “too little, too late.” “If Twitter wanted to be transparent with its second largest shareholder, who is entitled to see their books and records. If they wanted to reassure their would-be new owner, they had every opportunity to do so, and they did the opposite,” Musk’s adviser said. G/O Media may receive a commission Twitter and Musk’s lawyer are at odds over when the upcoming trial will take place. While Twitter is seeking a four-day trial in September, Musk wants to extend it and allow discovery to continue until February 2023. Musk’s lawyers say their team needs more time to analyze the deluge of Twitter data that has at their disposal and to prepare for trial and accused the company of deliberately making it difficult for them to carry out investigations. Meanwhile, Twitter says prolonged delays will hurt shareholders and are not supported by sufficient legal precedent. Although Twitter’s preferred test date is just two months away, the company said Musk’s team has been essentially preparing for a test since the company first provided Musk with a so-called firehose of user data in early June. Twitter has sued in Delaware court to force SpaceX’s CEO to follow through on his agreement to buy the company. Musk agreed to buy Twitter for $44 billion in late April at a share price of $54.20, well above the current price of $39.40. He filed to terminate the deal on July 8 after a protracted exchange that at one point saw him tweet a pop emoji at the company’s chief executive. The billionaire, meanwhile, was spotted on Monday by paparazzi on a luxury yacht in Mykonos. Ari Emmanuel, the Entourage creator and brother of the US ambassador to Japan, was seen dousing him with water. In court, Musk’s lawyer accused Twitter of rigging the process to jockey for an advantage. “The New York Times got a copy of their complaint before I did, so if the question is: who is creating chaos? Twitter is and should not come to Court seeking relief on this basis,” Musk’s lawyer said. Musk argued that the prevalence of automated accounts on the social network has sharpened his desire to buy it. He reiterated the point on Tuesday and accused Twitter of “hoarding.” He has challenged Twitter’s metrics on spam bots and has repeatedly asked for more data about them, requests that Twitter has complied with. “Twitter wants to continue to shroud the issue of their fake or spam accounts in secrecy for as long as is necessary to convince Musk to complete this purchase,” his lawyer said. “Instead of saying, ‘We have all the data we’re looking at,’ we had delays, we got a non-functional copy of the ‘fire hose’ that became more difficult to use, we have limits on the fire hose to frustrate our experts’ efforts to analyze the data”. Twitter’s lawyers said his claim was false and that the merger agreement between the two accounts for such activity, that the spam accounts should not be news to Musk. “Nothing in the merger agreement is in any way dependent on bots, fake accounts or anything else [of the like]. It’s not the subject of the merger agreement, so it’s not what this case will be about,” Twitter’s lawyer said. Musk had asked for the trial to be delayed, though his lawyer said Tuesday: “Obviously, we’re not opposed to the mission, period.” Twitter’s lawyer rebuffed his attempts to block the process and accused him of trying to “run out the clock.” Musk’s lawyer argued that he had never intentionally harmed the company since he is such a large shareholder. “The idea, frankly, Your Honor, that Mr. Musk is trying to harm the company, or that he’s effectively harming the company by tweeting, is preposterous. He has no interest in harming the company. He has a much larger financial stake than the entire board of Twitter,” his lawyer said. “Justice delayed is justice denied,” the Twitter advocate said. The federal government is also now joining the merger. In a letter sent Friday, the Securities and Exchange Commission questioned whether Musk was ever serious about trying to buy Twitter. In her ruling, Judge Kathaleen McCormick said Musk’s team “underestimated” the court’s ability to quickly litigate the case. The court ultimately ruled in favor of Twitter, scheduling and setting a five-day trial in October of this year. That’s slightly delayed from Twitter’s preferred trial in September, but still comes many months ahead of the date Musk’s lawyers have requested. This is a developing story, check back for updates.
