Elon Musk scored both a victory and a defeat in his ongoing dispute with Twitter.
A Delaware court denied Musk’s request to delay the trial over his attempt to abandon a $44 billion deal to buy Twitter, but also allowed to add claims from a Twitter whistleblower to his countersuit.
After Musk’s legal team requested the trial to start in mid-November, Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick ruled the trial to follow the expected date on October 17.
“I previously rejected Defendants’ arguments in response to Twitter’s motion to expedite, making clear that the longer the delay until trial, the greater the risk of irreparable harm to Twitter,” McCormick wrote. “I am convinced that even four weeks’ delay would risk further harm to Twitter too great to justify.”
McCormick said Musk’s team would be entitled to only “incremental discovery” based on the new allegations, including “targeted document discovery and minimal additional experts and fact witnesses.”
Musk’s lawyers also asked to add a whistleblower complaint by Twitter’s former head of security, Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, who pointed at security failings by the social media company.
The Tesla founder originally said he wants to exit the deal because Twitter has failed to provide reliable information about the percentage of its monetizable users that are actually spam accounts.
Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal has denied all allegations.
