Musk Seeks Dismissal Of Twitter Investor Suit As 'Hypothetical'

(Bloomberg) -- Elon Musk asked a judge to throw out a Twitter Inc. shareholder’s lawsuit over the billionaire’s effort to cancel his $44 billion buyout of company, already the subject of a high-profile legal battle.

The suit is flawed because it casts the Tesla Inc. chief executive officer as controlling Twitter and seeks to recover “purely hypothetical” losses on behalf of all Twitter investors, Musk’s lawyers argued.

“Musk owns less than 10% of Twitter with no board representation or influence -- hardly indicative of control over Twitter’s board,” they told Delaware Chancery Judge Kathaleen St. J. McCormick in an Aug. 18 motion to dismiss the case.

The suit, filed July 29 by an investor who holds 5,500 Twitter shares, targets Musk’s “lame rationales for reneging on his contract,” accusing Musk of inventing excuses to get out of the deal.

Read More: Musk Sued by Twitter Investor Over Busted $44 Billion Deal 

McCormick is also overseeing Twitter’s suit seeking to force Musk to consummate his $54.20-a-share deal for the social media company, a dispute set for trial Oct. 17 in Wilmington. She is also presiding over an investor suit targeting Musk’s compensation package.

Twitter’s lawyers say they will need only four days in court to prove that Musk is using questions about spam and bot accounts among the platform’s customer base as a pretext to walk away from the deal. The company said it has turned over all its information about those accounts. Musk says he needs more to defend himself.

The shareholder case is Crispo v. Musk, 2022-0666, Delaware Chancery Court (Wilmington).

Read More

• Musk Says Twitter Is Hounding Him Over Every Chat About Buyout
• Twitter Must Give Musk Data, Documents From Ex-Product Head 
• What If Musk Is Ordered to Do Twitter Deal and He Just Says No?

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