(NEW YORK) — Elon Musk accused Twitter on Thursday of failing to accept his restored offer to purchase the social media platform at the original price of $54.20 per share.
The billionaire entrepreneur also asked the Delaware Chancery Court to halt a trial that’s scheduled to begin later this month. Musk and Twitter have been embroiled in a legal battle since he made an offer to buy the platform and then decided to back out after the company allegedly did not provide him with the information he requested about bot accounts.
“Twitter will not take yes for an answer. Astonishingly, they have insisted on proceeding with this litigation, recklessly putting the deal at risk and gambling with their stockholders’ interests,” Musk’s attorneys said in a new court filing.
“Twitter offered Mr. Musk billions off the transaction price. Mr. Musk refused because Twitter attempted to put certain self-serving conditions on the deal. Any statement to the contrary is a lie,” Musk’s attorney, Alex Spiro of Quinn Emanuel, said in a statement.
In response, Twitter said it opposes the attempt to stop the trial.
Shortly after Musk requested canceling the trial on Thursday, the judge postponed it, a source familiar with the matter told ABC News.
The trial, which was initially scheduled to start on Oct. 17, has now been pushed to Oct. 28, according to the source — the same date by which Musk said he expects the deal with Twitter to close.
“As a result, there is no need for an expedited trial to order Defendants to do what they are already doing and this action is now moot,” Musk said in the filing.
In a statement later on Thursday, Twitter said it plans to close the deal by that date.
“We look forward to closing the transaction at $54.20 by Oct. 28,” the company said.
After a monthslong effort to terminate the agreement, Musk announced on Tuesday he had put forward a proposal to Twitter that would complete the deal at Musk’s original offer price of $54.20 a share — for a total cost of roughly $44 billion, a person familiar with the proposal told ABC News.
Twitter had said in a statement Tuesday it intends to “close the transaction at $54.20 per share.”
Musk initially reached an acquisition deal with Twitter in April, before raising concern over spam accounts on the platform and claiming Twitter had not provided him with an accurate estimate of their number. Twitter rebuked that claim, saying it had provided Musk with information in accordance with conditions set out in the acquisition deal.
In May, Musk said the deal was on “temporary hold” over the bot concerns. Dan Ives, a managing director of equity research at Wedbush, an investment firm, told ABC News at the time that the grievance could serve as a pretext for Musk to renegotiate or abandon the deal amid a market downturn that had proven especially pronounced for tech stocks.
Musk continued to threaten to pull out of the deal if Twitter didn’t provide additional information about the prevalence of bots, before moving to terminate his acquisition of Twitter in July.
Days later, Twitter filed a lawsuit against Musk over his effort to terminate an acquisition agreement.
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