Will the world’s richest complete his agreed buy out of the social media platform Twitter?
That is the big, contentious question.
The judge overseeing Twitter’s massive $44 billion lawsuit against Elon Musk for pulling out of a huge buyout for the platform has scheduled the first hearing for the contentious, high-profile case, Reuters reports.
Judge Kathaleen McCormick took over the role of the chancellor or chief judge of the Court of Chancery in 2021, making her the first woman to hold this role. She has a no-nonsense reputation, as well as the distinction of being one of the few judges who has ever ordered a reluctant buyer to close a corporate merger.
McCormick was assigned the Musk-Twitter case this week. Twitter has filed against Musk to complete his agreed deal for purchasing the platform.
Law experts say the judge has a track record of “not putting up with some of the worst behavior” that is seen in areas where people want to dodge and get out of deals.
Musk is known for his brash, volatile behavior.
McCormick is known to be soft-spoken, approachable, and amiable, but someone who always stands her ground. She is famous for advocating respect among litigants and integrity at legal conferences.
There have been weeks and weeks of confrontational tweets by Musk, suggesting that Twitter was somehow hiding the true number of fake accounts on the site.
After that, Musk pulled out of the deal, saying on July 8 that the deal was over. It was worth $44 billion, racking up at $54.20-per-Twitter share.
Twitter did not take kindly to the pull-out and sued him.
McCormick today scheduled the first hearing of the Musk-Twitter case for July 19 in Delaware. There, she will consider the request by Twitter to expedite the case, and she will conduct a four-day trial in September before the deal needs to close according to the paperwork.
There have been many legal precedences set by judges where they have ordered reluctant buyers to finish their deals and lose corporate acquisitions. One of those precedents was set by McCormick herself.
Last year, she ordered an affiliate of private equity firm Kohlberg & Co LLC to close its $550 million purchase of DecoPac Holding.
The case holds a lot of different parallels to the Twitter deal. Legal experts are drawing lines between the cases, and suggesting that the judge will ultimately rule that Musk has to finish what he started, and purchase Twitter.
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