Delaware Court Denies Musk Request to Delay Trial

Delaware court denied Elon Musk's request to delay Twitter trial but allowed him to add claims from a Twitter whistleblower to his countersuit.

The trial is expected to begin Oct. 17, earlier than the mid-November date Musk’s team requested in its latest push.

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. I am convinced that even four weeks’ delay would risk further harm to Twitter too great to justify,

said Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick.

However, she allowed Musk to allow to amend his counterclaim to add claims related to the whistleblower complaint recently made public by Twitter’s former head of security, Peiter “Mudge” Zatko. Musk’s team argued the complaint, which detailed what Zatko alleged were egregious security failings by the company, would show Twitter breached its terms of the merger agreement if true.

Musk originally said he wants to exit the deal because he’s received insufficient reassurance from Twitter about the percentage of its monetizable users that are actually spam accounts.

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.”