Elon Musk is scheduled for a deposition with Twitter next week.
Key Details
- Elon Musk is scheduled to answer questions from Twitter’s lawyers on September 26 and 27 for a deposition.
- Musk has attempted to back out of his $44-billion deal to buy Twitter due to the platform having too many fake accounts and the company giving misleading data about itself.
- The deposition will take place behind closed doors at a law office in Wilmington, Delaware, and may be extended into a third day if needed, according to Bloomberg.
Why it’s news
Musk has attempted to back out of his $44-billion deal to buy Twitter due to the platform having too many fake accounts for a while, but Twitter has argued that he is just suffering from buyers remorse.
Twitter’s lawyers will ask him questions in the deposition next week.
Musk’s attorney, Alex Spiro, will have to sit for his own deposition on September 25, according to a court filing.
“It’s very odd to have the lead litigator have to give a deposition in this M&A case,” law professor Larry Hamermesh said in an interview Tuesday. “Legal privilege excludes him from talking about any aspect of the case, so it’s puzzling what topics they think they can explore with him.”
The trial is scheduled to begin October 17 and last five days unless it can be solved before then.
Backing up a bit
The timeline between Elon Musk and Twitter is a lengthy one.
In April, Elon Musk announced that he held a 9.2% stake in Twitter, which made him the social-media company’s largest shareholder. Twitter’s stock price soared 25% after the announcement.
Later that month, the billionaire entrepreneur offered to buy all of Twitter at $54.20 per share—equaling about $44 billion. He said he originally invested in the platform because he believes it is failing in its potential to be the leading platform for free speech around the globe. In fact, he asked his 2 million followers if Twitter adhered to principles of free speech, and 70% said “no.”
Last month, Musk decided to back out of the deal, claiming there were too many fake accounts on the platform. Twitter has since sued Musk in Delaware Court of Chancery to complete the deal and requested the trial to take place in September. Musk, on the other hand, wanted to delay the trial until February 2023, stating that a case of this size takes time to prepare. Twitter was granted its wish of an expedited trial, with Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick, the presiding judge, setting a five-day trial for October.
Musk then countersued Twitter, stating his reason for the termination was due to Twitter not being upfront about the number of fake accounts on the platform.Then, Elon Musk and his legal team subpoenaed Twitter’s founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey, to get him to release documents that provide accurate information on bots and spam accounts on the social-media platform and now these documents have come out from Zatko and Musk and his lawyers have subpoenaed him as well.
