Tech entrepreneur Elon Musk is striking back against Twitter by countersuing the social media company to void his $44 billion buyout deal, according to reports.
According to The New York Post, Musk will file his counter-lawsuit against Twitter in the coming days.
Musk’s lawyers will ask a Delaware Court of Chancery judge to give them more time to gather information about the number of bots and fake accounts on the social media platform that scuppered the deal for Musk.
This comes less than a week after Twitter sued Musk in Delaware.
The lawsuit accuses Musk of agreeing to buy Twitter just so he could “trash the company, disrupt its operations, destroy stockholder value, and walk away.”
Musk has 20 days from last Tuesday to file his counterclaims.
According to The New York Post:
Twitter’s lawyers are pushing for a four-day trial starting in September, while Musk wants the trial to open no earlier than February 2023.
“The core dispute over false and spam accounts is fundamental to Twitter’s value,” Musk’s lawyers wrote in a filing on Friday in response to Twitter’s suit.
“It is also extremely fact and expert intensive, requiring substantial time for discovery.”
Musk’s countersuit would also be heard by McCormick.
The chancellor is “likely to grant” Twitter’s request for a quick trial, University Of Iowa law corporate and finance law professor Robert T. Miller said in a Monday Wells Fargo investor note obtained by The Post.
Musk then filing a countersuit would make sense because “if he doesn’t do that, he’s surrendering,” Miller added in an interview with The Post.
Miller — who used to work at Wachtell, Lipton, the law firm representing Twitter — doesn’t expect a countersuit to turn the tide in Musk’s favor if he reiterates the same claims about Twitter bots without new evidence.
But if Musk embraces new arguments, he could potentially win additional time or discovery power, Miller said.
