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Speaker 1: Well, as we've been reporting, today, Twitter scored an early

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Speaker 1: win against Elon Musk. He's failed to complete his forty

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Speaker 1: four billion dollar buyout of the social media platform. And

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Speaker 1: today at Delaware judge agreed to fast track Twitter's lawsuit

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Speaker 1: against Matsk, sitting a trial date for October. Joining us.

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Speaker 1: Now we have Tom Giles, Bloomberg Tech editor. So Tom,

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Speaker 1: the judge fairly swiftly rejected the arguments from Elon Musk's lawyers.

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Speaker 1: What did the judge say, Well, the lawyers were lawyers

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Speaker 1: on behalf of Musk. Wanted more time. Basically, they wanted

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Speaker 1: to refute Twitter's request for an expedited trial. Twitter's argument

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Speaker 1: is that the longer this drags out, the worst our businesses.

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Speaker 1: We want a swift resolution. Nobody likes limbo. The judge

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Speaker 1: started with Twitter and said, the longer distracts out the

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Speaker 1: worst it is for the business. This is not this

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Speaker 1: is not good for Twitter. Um And so the judge

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Speaker 1: really didn't get in. Today's proceedings really didn't get to

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Speaker 1: the merits of whether or not Musk can walk away

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Speaker 1: from the deal. It was really just about whether Twitter

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Speaker 1: can have a quick turnaround in the trial, and and

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Speaker 1: the judge was very sympathetic to that. Um. You know,

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Speaker 1: they wanted the trial to start in September. They said

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Speaker 1: it should last only four days. She met him part

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Speaker 1: of the way. She said, let's have it be in October,

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Speaker 1: and it will take five days and and and it

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Speaker 1: was much quicker than what Musk was looking where Musk

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Speaker 1: was looking for February three. So Twitter definitely scored an

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Speaker 1: early victory here uh today in Delaware court. But there's

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Speaker 1: a lot more work that's gonna that it's going to

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Speaker 1: need to do, uh in order to force Musk to

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Speaker 1: carry through on his deal. Well, that takes me to

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Speaker 1: the next issue here. When you get into a situation

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Speaker 1: like this between two companies, there's a merger agreement obviously

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Speaker 1: that Twitter would like to enforce. Is there the possibility, Tom,

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Speaker 1: that Musk is successful in negotiating a lower price. Let's say,

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Speaker 1: just as a hypothetical, that is a possible scenario, um,

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Speaker 1: and it and it could be negotiated out of court.

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Speaker 1: The different scenarios are here. One Twitter wins and gets

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Speaker 1: Musks to pay a share for Twitter shares for each

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Speaker 1: Twitter share. That is one possibility, Um. The other possibility

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Speaker 1: is the judge decides that Musk was right and that

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Speaker 1: Twitter somehow UM made a material breach of the agreement,

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Speaker 1: particularly in that it didn't give enough information about bonds

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Speaker 1: or that essentially it's business is far worse than it

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Speaker 1: represented UH and and therefore says, Okay, Musk, you can

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Speaker 1: walk away and pay your you know, the billion dollar

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Speaker 1: breakup feet that you agree to. A middle scenario could

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Speaker 1: be that the two sides decide out of court, they

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Speaker 1: start settlement cotton negotiations and decide that, you know, Musk

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Speaker 1: will still by the company, but he'll do it at

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Speaker 1: a lower price. If you're Twitter, you really want the judge,

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Speaker 1: you really want the judge to you know, make the

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Speaker 1: decision here. Because this court has has a history of

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Speaker 1: being partial to UH the sellers UM and impartial to

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Speaker 1: the party that wants to walk away. There's only been

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Speaker 1: one instance where they found what's called the material advert fact,

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Speaker 1: which is essentially that the business was really really bad

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Speaker 1: and that the sellers failed, that they misrepresented how bad

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Speaker 1: it was. UM. That's only happened in one case, and they,

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Speaker 1: you know, these people here a lot of cases. So

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Speaker 1: the odds, at least according to legal experts, that we've

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Speaker 1: spoken to. The odds are certainly in Twitter's favor and

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Speaker 1: going against Elon Musk in terms of forcing Elon Musk

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Speaker 1: to go ahead with this deal. What sort of precedent

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Speaker 1: is there? Yeah, I mean technically, you know, you typically

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Speaker 1: this court and this is the court that both I'd agreed,

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Speaker 1: would would adjudicate if there was a disagreement. The precedent

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Speaker 1: is typically you side with the party that you know

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Speaker 1: you you side with the seller, and and and and

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Speaker 1: you don't let someone who is walking. They have to

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Speaker 1: have a really good reason to walk away. There has

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Speaker 1: to be something. They have to prove that there was

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Speaker 1: something really materially wrong with the company, and that and

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Speaker 1: and and that they somehow misled Musk. Now, the problem

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Speaker 1: that Musk has is that he signed an agreement to

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Speaker 1: agreed to this deal without having seen all of the

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Speaker 1: all of their financials. He agreed to, he waived that right.

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Speaker 1: And so to say afterward that like, well, you're not

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Speaker 1: letting me see enough, or you're not giving me enough information,

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Speaker 1: or what I have seen I disagree with and you're

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Speaker 1: completely wrong and you misled me. It's really hard for

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Speaker 1: him to make that case. It's like buying a car

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Speaker 1: side unseen, but then looking under the hood and seeing

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Speaker 1: things that are wrong with and saying I don't want

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Speaker 1: to carry through in my agreement, even though you agreed

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Speaker 1: to make that purchase without you know, looking under the hood. Tom,

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Speaker 1: you're speaking to us from San Francisco, that is where

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Speaker 1: Twitter is based, very quickly hearing about the thirties seconds

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Speaker 1: or so. What's the mood at the company right now?

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Speaker 1: Do we know? Well, there's a lot of uncertainty. It's

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Speaker 1: a it's a dour mood. Um. You know, a lot

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Speaker 1: of people who didn't want to see the company agreed

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Speaker 1: assell to to to Elon Musk. You spent several months

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Speaker 1: disparaging management and telling the company is doing a bad job.

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Speaker 1: And now he's trying to walk away from the deal,

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Speaker 1: and now Twitter's board wants to force his hand. It's

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Speaker 1: not a great situation if you're an employee of Twitter.

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Speaker 1: Tom Chiles, Bloomberg's Tech editor, joining us from our bureau

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Speaker 1: in San Francisco. Thanks so much, as