Twitter has taken the next step in their battle with Elon Musk to make sure he completes his $44 billion buyout of the social media company by filing a lawsuit against him in Delaware Chancery Court on Tuesday.
If the court finds in favour of Musk, he will be able to walk away from the deal without having pay the $1 billion termination fee.
According to a copy of the lawsuit reviewed by The New York Times, Twitter says Musk decided to renege on the deal not because he couldn’t validate the number of fake of spam accounts, but because the deal “no longer serves his personal interests,” without going into specific of what those interests might be.
Through their law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz LLP, Twitter didn’t hold back in describing how they felt about Musk’s attempts to terminate the deal
“Musk refuses to honor his obligations to Twitter and its stockholders because the deal he signed no longer serves his personal interests. Musk apparently believes that he — unlike every other party subject to Delaware contract law — is free to change his mind, trash the company, disrupt its operations, destroy stockholder value, and walk away.”
Wanting to avoid a lengthy trial, Twitter told its employees in an internal email obtained by The New York Times that they have “filed a motion for an expedited trial alongside the complaint, asking for the case to be heard in September, as it is critically important for this matter to be resolved quickly.”
If the court agrees to the motion, the trail would last four days and must be completed by October 24, as that is the deadline for the deal to be completed as per the terms of the Merger Agreement.
Shares of Twitter (TWTR) rose slightly after news of the lawsuit broke, trading up about 1% in after-hours trading.
