After Twitter formally filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk on July 12, the billionaire is expected to fight back.
In the latest development of the Twitter buyout, Musk plans to countersue the social media giant in an attempt to scrap the $44 billion agreement. The Tesla CEO pulled out of the deal after he believed Twitter greatly underestimated the number of bots on its platform.
Musk must file his own counterclaims before the 20-day deadline ends August 1, the New York Post reported.
While Musk has not directly admitted to playing Twitter, it is plausible he was planning on using the discovery phase of the lawsuit all along.
Discovery is the formal process before trial when both parties exchange relevant information to the case at hand. It is used to know what evidence may be presented in court.
“The core dispute over false and spam accounts is fundamental to Twitter’s value,” Musk’s lawyers wrote in a filing Friday. “It is also extremely fact and expert intensive, requiring substantial time for discovery.”
This phase forces Twitter to disclose accurate bot information on its platform, which Musk claims the Big Tech company has not been fully transparent about.
Whether Musk intentionally forced Twitter’s hand or not is unclear, but it would not be out of character for him to plan ahead.
His tweets make you wonder, though.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 11, 2022
Chuckmate
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 11, 2022
While Twitter continues playing checkers, Musk is busy playing chess as seen from the tweet above.
After the first court hearing on Tuesday, a Delaware judge ruled that the trial would be moved to October despite Musk’s wishes. The trial will run for five days, CNBC reported.
Twitter had called for an early trial in September, and Musk wanted to wait until February 2023 at the earliest, according to the Post.
Though Musk lost the effort to delay the trial, it appears the billionaire is playing the long game to upset Twitter’s profitability.
Bots, which increase the number of daily active users, are used to make money on behalf of Twitter. By claiming the bot number is much higher than 5 percent, Musk is threatening Twitter’s monetary value.
Do you think the countersuit is part of Elon Musk’s grand plan?
Musk offered to buy the social media company in April and backed out three months later. Twitter’s shares were down 24 percent since April as of July 8, The New York Times reported.
Musk may be on the defense right now, but it wouldn’t be surprising if this and his potential countersuit were all part of his grand plan to expose Twitter.
Guess we’ll have to wait and see what happens in October.
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