Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick signed off on a trial schedule for the week in mid-October, the court docket paperwork mentioned, in addition to setting a deadline of Friday for Musk’s staff to reply to Twitter’s criticism.
Musk formally did so later within the day. The reply was filed below seal, nonetheless, that means the arguments weren’t publicly accessible. The confidential response consisted of counterclaims in opposition to Twitter and numbered greater than 160 pages, in accordance with a abstract offered by a court docket submitting system. Confidentiality may be permitted for sure classes of information, in accordance with the court docket, similar to commerce secrets and techniques, delicate monetary or enterprise information, or personnel particulars, for instance.
Confidentiality must be granted solely “if the public interest in access to Court proceedings is outweighed by the harm that public disclosure of sensitive, nonpublic information would cause,” the court rules say.
Court rules specify that these making a confidential submitting in Delaware ought to situation a public model inside 5 days, although there are exceptions. The public model would include redactions of the particular confidential information.
Twitter sued Musk earlier in July alleging that the Tesla and SpaceX CEO had damaged his settlement to purchase the social media web site for $44 billion, in a criticism that accused Musk of rule-breaking and “hypocrisy.”
Musk agreed to purchase Twitter for $54.20 a share in April, positioning himself as a champion of free speech and pledging to unbind the location from aggressive moderation ways he decried as political in nature. He additionally promised a good portion of his personal wealth to again the deal.
Musk additionally took aim at spam bots, or pretend or automated accounts, which he pledged to defeat “or die trying” if his bid succeeded.
But his view towards the deal soured weeks later, as Musk tweeted the deal was “on hold” pending an analysis of the share of pretend accounts on the location. The about flip coincided with investor worries and financial strain that took a major toll on the Tesla inventory, which is related to a lot of Musk’s internet value.
That sparked a public battle as Twitter sought to offer proof for its estimation that spam and bot accounts made up fewer than 5 p.c of accounts on the location.
Let’s speak about spam. And let’s achieve this with the good thing about knowledge, details, and context…
— Parag Agrawal (@paraga) May 16, 2022
Musk introduced on July 8 he was pulling out of the deal. Twitter filed the swimsuit a couple of days later, sending the matter to the Delaware court docket.
The trial is slated to happen over 5 days and conclude on Oct. 21.
Elizabeth Dwoskin contributed to this report.