Elon Musk has certainly proven to be a rather good real-life version of the Roadrunner – elusive and hard to catch. Up until now, he’s been trying his darndest to exit his $44 billion Twitter takeover deal. With his big battle with Twitter scheduled for court on October 17 – just 34 days away. Musk’s legal team has been desperately seeking to delay the hearing to prepare a better defense, either that or have it dismissed entirely, on increasingly spurious legal grounds.

Tenacious Elon

Questionable approaches or not, Musk’s lawyers are certainly doing their job, exploring every possible avenue to extricate Musk from the deal, if at all possible. This is highly improbable though, but still, a man has to try, right? Team Musk’s latest proposed case for dismissal comes on the back of Peiter ‘Mudge’ Zatko’s various accusations against Twitter over its internal operations, and flaws in its reporting and security systems.

Zatko, whom Twitter employed between late 2020 and early this year, was dismissed due to what Twitter claims was ‘poor performance and leadership’, though he was paid out a hefty $7 million for his time. Said payment is now the basis of Musk’s latest legal appeal against the takeover deal, with Musk’s legal team arguing that the millions of dollars that Twitter paid to Zatko are actually in violation of the terms of the deal. Musk and his team are positioning themselves that this major change occurred after Musk agreed to the deal, altering the scope of the company, which supposedly isn’t allowed under the deal’s terms. Though Twitter was quick to shut down this suggestion.

As noted, Twitter’s shareholders are meeting this week to vote on the Musk takeover, which is, in Twitter’s view, the final step in securing the deal. Twitter has urged shareholders to accept Musk’s $44 billion offer and the expectation is that the vote will go through without a hitch. If it does, that then clears the way for the final settlement, which Twitter’s legal team remains confident will eventually go through, after the October hearing.

On the other hand, Musk’s team seems far less assured, pulling out every trick in the book to try and push back the trial. None of those efforts have held up so far, though that doesn’t mean that they won’t find other technicalities to get Musk off the hook when the hearing does have its day. It’s worth noting that Musk has previously been able to utilize a range of legal loopholes and technicalities in various other legal actions that have been brought against him. Back in 2019, after Musk baselessly accused a cave diver of being a pedophile via Tweet, and was subsequently sued for defamation by the accused. Musk’s legal team was eventually able to get the case dismissed entirely since Musk didn’t technically mention the accused in the offending Tweet. So Musk and his team are good at finding legal loopholes, but that skill seems to fall a tad short in their recent struggle.

The Wrap

On balance, it seems like Twitter’s legal team has come prepared for this. With knowledge of Musk and his judiciary MOs, they do seem to have established very solid contractual terms and obligations – it’ll be tough for Musk to wriggle his way out of this one. Still, it wouldn’t be all that surprising to hear if Musk’s team does manage to find a way out, but that’s seemingly unlikely. It finally could be that Musk’s arrogance will be his downfall this time. Guess we’ll find out soon enough.

Sources

https://bit.ly/3RIFaUt