Lawyers for billionaire tech billionaire Elon Musk have formally requested the cancellation of the upcoming trial with Twitter, as the two sides try to negotiate a deal.
Earlier this week, Musk’s camp suggested going ahead with the original deal, to buy Twitter at $54.20 a share, on the condition that Musk is funded and the trial is postponed. Twitter responded that it was also intent on sealing the deal.
While this certainly appears to put the parties much closer to an agreement, it was not an immediate end to the litigation. The New York Times has since reported that Twitter does not want to cancel the experiment until the deal is completed and the company’s shareholders have been paid, Engadget reported.
There are likely to be other sticking points as well. Bloomberg reported last Tuesday that “Musk is also seeking to retain his rights to file a fraud lawsuit over his allegations that platform executives misled him and other investors about the number of spam and bot accounts.”
“Twitter will not accept a yes,” Musk’s lawyers wrote. “It is surprising that they insisted on going ahead with this litigation, recklessly putting the deal at risk and gambling with the interests of the shareholders. Rather than allowing the parties to shift their focus to securing the debt financing necessary to complete the deal and prepare for the business transition, the parties will instead be distracted by completing the Unnecessary discovery and experiment.
The judge in the case postponed the trial until October 28, the date Musk’s lawyers said they expected to close. “If the transaction is not closed by 5pm on October 28, 2022, the parties are requested to contact me via email that evening for trial dates for November 2022,” wrote Kathleen St. Jude McCormick.