By Brooks M. Deering, The Chicago Times
October 7, 2022
DELAWARE – A Delaware Chancery judge ordered Elon Musk to complete his acquisition of Twitter by October 28 to avoid a trail.
Musk, CEO of Tesla, announced he would return to his original agreed price of $54.20 a share if the embattled social media company dropped all pending litigation. However, Twitter management refused the offer.
According to a court filing in Delaware, Musk’s attorneys argued that Twitter’s insistence on continuing litigation, despite Musk’s agreement to continue the deal, is gambling with stockholder’s interests and placing the entire deal in jeopardy. The filing also claimed that dropping the pending litigation will also allow time for Musk to put his financial ducks in a row to complete the deal.
Twitter responded by claiming Musk’s court filing was another delay tactic and accused Musk of being disingenuous.
When Musk had attempted to pull out of the deal due to Twitter’s refusal to release data on the number of fake accounts they hold, Twitter sued Musk in July in order to force the deal to a close. The pending litigation may be Twitter’s key to ensuring Musk secures the necessary financing, which Musk’s attorneys said can be completed by October 28.
However, Twitter’s lawyers claim that an unnamed corporate representative of one of the leading banks involved in the deal testified that Musk has yet to send them a borrowing notice nor communicated that he intends to close the deal. Yet, Twitter did admit that it had received a letter from Musk and his attorneys expressing interest in closing the deal at the original price.
The Chicago Times 