Elon Musk vs. Twitter (TWTR) – Get the Twitter Inc. Report: It’s a Battle Royale.
It’s a battle of titans that will have important implications for mergers and acquisitions going forward.
World’s richest man and CEO of Tesla (TSLA) – Get Tesla Inc. Report has abruptly withdrawn its $44 billion bid to acquire the microblogging website, which it describes as the Town Square of our time. Twitter took legal action to make Musk follow through on his commitment. It is therefore not surprising that the two adversaries are bringing out heavy artillery to destabilize the other. The battle is primarily mental. They must send messages to the opponent to show them that they are ready to do anything to strike to prevent them from getting up.
Twitter wants a trial period until mid-September
Twitter struck first, filing its lawsuit on July 12, just three days after Musk’s resignation, in a Delaware court. And in this document, the platform uses the quirky entrepreneur’s own tweets. The icing on the cake, the social network wants justice for a speedy trial.
The platform is pushing for the process to take place in mid-September, as the merger agreement between the two parties stipulates that if it is not finalized before October 24, either side can terminate it for free.
“Defendants’ ability to terminate the agreement prior to the purported end date of October 24, 2022 is extremely limited and carefully circumscribed,” Twitter said in its lawsuit, which can be found here. “Defendants shall have no right to terminate unless there is a breach material enough to cause a breach of a condition of closing which, after due notice, either cannot be cured or is not cured within 30 days of such notice.”
“Twitter has suffered and will continue to suffer irreparable harm as a result of the defendants’ violations,” the platform claimed.
Musk wants the process to begin in 2023
Musk did not immediately respond. The billionaire let a few days pass and just went on the counterattack. In their response to the Twitter complaint, Musk’s lawyers are asking that the trial not take place until February 13, 2023 at the earliest.
“Plaintiff’s proposed schedule would seriously prejudice defendants by depriving them of a meaningful opportunity to conduct discovery, conduct expert analysis and present their case,” the billionaire’s attorneys wrote in their complaint, which you can read in full here.
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“The only relevant date is the external date for the debt financing, April 25, 2023. Accordingly, the defendants respectfully request a trial on or after February 13, 2023, an extremely expeditious schedule for a case of this enormous magnitude that affords the court time for a reasoned decision before the true outer date,” they claim.
In his letter withdrawing the offer to acquire Twitter, Musk accused the social network’s management of lying about the number of spambots or fake accounts present on the platform. Twitter has always estimated that fake accounts represent less than 5% of users. Musk estimates that figure to be at least 20%.
“The underlying controversy over fake and spam accounts is fundamental to the value of Twitter. It is also highly fact-based and expert-intensive, requiring significant discovery time. Twitter is a social media platform whose self-proclaimed key performance indicator is monetizable daily active users (“mDAUs”),” Musk’s team said in its 16-page proposal filed July 15.
They continued:
“Extraordinary expedition is also unjustified because any urgency stems from plaintiff’s strategic delay,” the billionaire’s team said. “Had Twitter either fulfilled its contractual obligations in a timely manner or informed the defendants that it would not, this dispute would have matured in early May.”
“The plaintiff’s attempt to impose “the burden of speedy proceedings on the defendants and the court cannot be reconciled with [its] inability to proceed apace.’
A hearing before a judge is scheduled for July 19. This hearing will decide when the trial will take place.
On a lighter note, the mogul thinks Twitter lacks humor.
“With a bot’s sense of humor, Twitter claims Musk is harming the company with tweets like Chuck Norris memes and poop emojis.” “Twitter is ignoring that Musk is the second largest shareholder with a much larger economic stake than the entire Twitter board,” Musk’s lawyers said.
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