The Delaware court on Thursday delayed the trial in Twitter’s lawsuit giving Elon Musk a fresh deadline to close his $44bn acquisition of the company.
In an order issued on Thursday, Judge Kathaleen McCormick said Musk has until 5 pm on October 28 to complete the agreed merger, warning that otherwise the trial will be rescheduled for November.
Earlier in the day, the Tesla chief had said he wanted to return to his original agreement and takeover the company for $54.20 per share and had urged the social media withdraws the case. However, the microblogging giant refused to oblige with the statement.
In a filing with Delaware’s Court of Chancery on Thursday, Musk’s side said Twitter should drop the court date scheduled for Oct. 17, so that the necessary financing can be pulled together to wrap up the acquisition by Oct. 28. Twitter in response to the filing said that Musk and his team were being disingenuous. “Only days before a trial was to commence, Musk’s team suddenly declares “they intend to close after all,” the lawyers wrote. They further added that the proposal was an invitation to mischief and delay.
The Delaware court was set to begin trials for the lawsuit Twitter filed suing Elon Musk who denied continuing with the takeover in July citing an explanation for the spam bots.
Earlier this week, Twitter acknowledged that it had received the letter from Musk and his attorneys in which they expressed their wish to buy Twitter for the originally agreed price. Twitter said in a response to the letter that “The intention of the Company is to close the transaction at $54.20 per share.” However, this is the first time since then that Twitter has commented on the litigation.