A court in the United States on Thursday gave more time to Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk to complete his $44 billion (over Rs 3,36,910 crore) deal to buy microblogging site Twitter, the Associated Press reported.
Judge Kathaleen McCormick halted Twitter’s lawsuit against the businessman till October 28. In the lawsuit, Twitter has sought an order to Musk to complete the merger agreement.
The trial was earlier slated to begin on October 17.
The court on Thursday said that if Musk failed to close the deal by October 28, it would schedule the trial for November.
The development came after Musk revived his offer to buy the San Francisco-based company earlier this week at the original price he had offered, months after backing out of the deal. He had proposed to buy Twitter on April 26.
Musk had announced on July 9 that he was terminating the deal to buy Twitter, claiming that the microblogging platform had breached the buyout agreement on multiple counts. The Tesla CEO said that he took the decision as Twitter did not provide enough information about the number of spam and fake accounts on its platform.
Twitter sued Musk on July 12 after the he backed out of its $44-billion deal to buy the social media company.
The social media company had told the court that the billionaire refuses to accept the “contractual obligations” of his April agreement to buy Twitter and take it private, reported Reuters. The company also alleged that Musk’s plan is “an invitation to further mischief and delay.”
Following the court order, Twitter said that it was ready to close the deal with Musk on the share price agreed upon in April reported Reuters. “We look forward to closing the transaction at $54.20 by October 28th,” Twitter said.
In his countersuit, Musk had accused Twitter of misleading its investors about the “key metrics” of the company, including the details about the fake accounts. After announcing the proposed takeover of Twitter, he had said that he would remove “spam bots” from the platform.
In response to Musk’s claims, Twitter submitted that neither did the businessman ask the company for details about the fake account when he offered to buy the platform, nor did the merger agreement have any mention of it.
On Wednesday, Musk said that he was buying Twitter to accelerate the creation of “X, the everything app”. The term “everything app” refers to an online application that could offer a range of services including messaging, social networking and online payments.
Limited-time offer: Big stories, small price. Keep independent media alive. Become a Scroll member today!
Our journalism is for everyone. But you can get special privileges by buying an annual Scroll Membership. Sign up today!