Elon Musk has filed an appeal against Twitter’s request to speed up the process of his plan to exit his $44 billion deal for the social media company.
Musk’s lawyers, in documents filed in a Delaware court on Friday, said Twitter’s “unwarranted request” for an emergency hearing on the merger case after two months should be denied.
It’s the latest move in what promises to be a major legal battle between Twitter and Musk. The San Francisco-based company is seeking to resolve months of uncertainty for its business as Musk tries to back out of the deal over what he says is Twitter’s “spam bot” problem.
Twitter sued Musk on Tuesday for breaching a deal to buy the social media platform, asking a Delaware court to order the world’s richest man to complete the merger at the agreed price of $54.20 per share.
The company requested that the process begin in September, as the merger agreement with Musk expires on October 25, 2022.
“Twitter’s sudden request for warp speed after two months of stalling and obfuscation is its latest tactic to hide the truth about the spam accounts long enough to get the defendants to shut down,” Musk’s filing said.
Musk’s lawyers have argued that the dispute over fake and spam accounts is fundamental to Twitter’s value and extremely fact- and expert-intensive. They said it would take a significant amount of time to discover and asked for a trial date on or after February 13 next year.
The debt financing package committed by the banks to acquire Musk expires in April 2023. That means if the process starts in February and doesn’t close by April, the deal could fall through.
Twitter declined to comment on Musk’s latest proposal.
Shares of Twitter were down about 1% in after-hours trading.
On Thursday, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) asked Musk to file any materials aimed at properly influencing shareholders in his bid to buy Twitter. The SEC’s request comes after an issue was raised in another filing.
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