The Delaware Court of Chancery has scheduled the trial for October 17 over Twitter’s lawsuit against Elon Musk for his refusal to buy the social media company for $44 billion. Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick issued the official schedule on Friday, October 29, 2022.

The trial is set to take place over the course of five days, from October 17 to October 21. Musk’s legal team had offered a start date of October 17, which Twitter agreed to.

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Late last week, Chancellor McCormick had set the hearing for October saying that a delay could cause “irreparable harm.” Twitter had asked for an expedited trial given that the terms of the deal with Musk would be terminated on October 25. 

Before her ruling last week, Musk’s team of lawyers were seeking a trial date in 2023, arguing that it would take time to go through all Twitter’s massive trove of data. At the time, Musk’s lawyers had made a filing at the Delaware court, saying that Twitter’s request for an expedited trial was an attempt to “shroud the truth about spam accounts” for long enough to ensure that the world’s richest person is forced to close the matter.

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The social media company’s second quarter earnings were lower than last year’s, which it blames on Musk for creating “uncertainty”, as advertisers worried about how the world’s richest man would change the platform once the deal was complete. 

Musk backed out of the $44 billion Twitter deal earlier this month citing the social media platform’s “spam bot” problem. According to him, the company had failed to adequately provide information on number of spam or bot accounts on the platform. 

In April this year the Tesla founder had promised to buy out Twitter at 38% over the share value at $54.20 when the market value sat at $51.70.