Musk to Court: "Twitter's Request for Speedy Trial Unfair... More Time Needed"

[Image source=Yonhap News]

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, who was sued by Twitter after canceling the acquisition deal, stated on the 15th (local time) that he opposes a speedy trial.

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that Musk's legal team opposed Twitter's request for a speedy trial in a petition submitted to the Delaware Court of Chancery, which is handling the lawsuit.

Earlier, on the 12th, Twitter filed a lawsuit asking the court to force Musk to fulfill the $44 billion (approximately 58 trillion won) acquisition agreement after he declared the cancellation of the deal. Along with this, Twitter submitted a request for a speedy trial to hold hearings around mid-September, citing recent economic downturns and the risk that the company could be hampered by uncertainty. They argued that a quick conclusion is necessary to protect Twitter and its shareholders from ongoing market risks and operational damages caused by Musk.

Twitter's lawsuit followed Musk's declaration to cancel the acquisition contract, citing breach of contractual obligations due to Twitter's insufficient disclosure regarding the status of spam (fake) accounts.

In the petition submitted on the same day, Musk's lawyers argued, "The core dispute surrounding fake and spam accounts is a fundamental part of Twitter's value," adding, "It requires an extremely extensive fact-finding process and expert involvement, which demands considerable time for verification." They requested that the hearing schedule be set for February 13 of next year or later. They also noted that the loan for acquisition financing remains valid until the end of April next year.

Musk's side clearly disclosed for the first time the development process of the controversy surrounding spam accounts in the documents submitted this time. According to these, Musk's concerns about Twitter's user numbers arose when Twitter corrected its "monetizable daily active users" (mDAU) while announcing its first-quarter earnings in April.

Twitter admitted that it had overestimated user numbers for nearly three years until the end of 2021 due to errors in counting people with multiple accounts, lowering the mDAU by 0.9% as of the fourth quarter of last year. According to court documents, Musk met with Twitter executives on May 6 to inquire about the method of calculating spam accounts, during which he realized that the method was inadequate. Twitter maintains that spam accounts constitute less than 5% of mDAU, but Musk does not accept this.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.