Representatives of the social network Twitter and Elon Musk’s lawyers met this Tuesday in a hearing to discuss the latest issues related to the upcoming legal battle. The central issue in next month’s trial is Twitter’s willingness to force Elon Musk to honor the deal, in which the world’s richest man buys the social network for $44 billion. In July, Musk backed out of the purchase.
With the trial scheduled for October 17, in the Delaware court, the judge handling the case was listening to representatives of the company and Musk.
Elon Musk’s lawyer has returned to argue that the trial should be postponed, taking into account the denunciation of vulnerabilities in the social network, made two weeks ago by Peiter Zatko, former head of Twitter security. Zatko worked for 15 months at the company, until he was fired in January this year by Parag Agrawal, the CEO who succeeded Jack Dorsey.
“Doesn’t Justice need a few more weeks to investigate this?”questioned Alex Spiro, the lawyer representing Elon Musk, in reference to the extensive complaint that was made public, which was also sent to entities such as the capital markets regulator (SEC) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) . In addition to mentioning weaknesses in the social network’s security, the veteran hacker known as “Mudge” also warned that the company would not be complying with an agreement made with the FTC to strengthen security. Musk’s defense request included a postponement of the trial until November.
Already on Wednesday, a document signed by Judge Kathaleen McCormick rejects Musk’s request to delay the trial. “I am convinced that even a four-week delay would pose an even greater risk to Twitter, too great to justify.”. Thus, the trial will continue scheduled for October 17. Still, he gave the green light to one of Musk’s defense requests: the inclusion of Peiter Zatko’s complaint.
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In reaction to this news of the inclusion of the complaint, sent to Forbes, Musk’s lawyer was “hopeful that by winning this case they have been one step closer to the truth being heard in that court.”
During the hearing, Twitter representatives accused Elon Musk of using the “bots” issue as an excuse. William Savitt, a lawyer for Twitter, read a message from Elon Musk, dated May, that was sent to the banker linked to the purchase process. “It doesn’t make sense to buy Twitter as we head into World War III,” Musk said in the message, referring to the war context affecting Europe.
In this way, the company’s lawyer alleges that Musk would be looking for a way to “escape” from the purchase, using the “bots” and the accusations made to Twitter of not providing the necessary documents as a pretext to end the business. . “That’s why Musk didn’t want to buy Twitter anymore, this whole bot thing, about monetizable daily active users and Zatko are pretexts”, quotes Reuters.
Musk’s defense disputed the arguments of Twitter’s lawyers, saying that “it is not responsible for the chaos or the delay.” “The reason they are having ‘all hands’ meetings [reuniões gerais] on Twitter is because a top executive said the company is committing fraud. Is this our fault? Is it our chaos? It is your chaos”, concluded the defense of the owner of Tesla.
The trial that opposes Twitter to Elon Musk will thus begin next month, with an expected duration of five days.
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Source: Observadora
