The Twitter (NYSE: TWTR) and Elon Musk saga continues: the judge handling Twitter's lawsuit against Musk in Delaware has set a deadline for the parties to make a deal or else the trial will be rescheduled. The trial had been set to start on October 17, but now Chancellor Kathleen McCormick has pushed the deadline for the deal to Oct. 28.
To recap, Musk first agreed to purchase the social media giant in April for $54.20 per share, or roughly $44 billion. After a few months of back and forth, Musk then announced that he was dropping out of the deal due to alleged misrepresentations from Twitter's team during the dealmaking process. Specifically, the tech billionaire said that the social media company had lied about how many fake or bot accounts were present on the platform.
In response, Twitter sued Musk in an effort to force him to complete the deal. So far, things seemed to be going in Twitter's favor, something which may have influenced Musk's recent decision to go forward with the deal after all. In early Oct., the world's richest man announced that he was willing to pay the initially agreed-upon price of $44 billion.
Twitter acknowledged Musk's announcement but didn't officially accept the offer or drop its suit. Twitter is expected to ask for additional provisions as a part of a revised deal, including charging interest on the initial price and requesting court oversight of the purchase. Dropping the suit would remove some of Twitter's leverage against Musk in those negotiations.
"Twitter will not take yes for an answer," Musk's attorneys wrote in a court filing on Oct. 6. "Astonishingly, they have insisted on proceeding with this litigation, recklessly putting the deal at risk and gambling with their stockholders' interests."
On the same day, in its own filing, Twitter wrote that it wasn't willing to trust Musk and argued that the tech billionaire's recent change of heart is actually "an invitation to further mischief and delay."
With Twitter continuing to develop its case against the carmaker, Musk asked McCormick to call off the suit, but the judge instead left open the possibility of a November trial if the deal isn't completed in time.
Musk says that the financing is all prepared for the acquisition, but Twitter says that it's heard otherwise from bank representatives.