Elon Musk’s mooted acquisition of Twitter might be on hold after two banks pull out of deal and a Delaware judge has said that the seemingly cancelled trial between the parties is back on.
Apollo Global Management Inc and Sixth Street, two American banks previously looking to front Musk the cash for his Twitter acquisition earlier this year, are apparently no longer in talks with the billionaire entrepreneur.
Musk had previously said that he would finance the deal with his own cash, co-investors and bank financing. Apollo had been considering the ways it could provide financing to the deal, while Sixth Street was looking into providing about $1 billion for the deal.
Sources familiar with the matter told Reuters that those talks have now ended.
Meanwhile, Kathaleen McCormick, the judge on Delaware’s Court of Chancery has said that the Musk and Twitter’s courtroom showdown has not been nixed as neither side has asked to pause proceedings. According to McCormick, neither side has applied for a “stay” in the action, despite Musk announcing on Monday that he would, in fact, go ahead with the $67 billion deal.
“The parties have not filed a stipulation to stay this action, nor has any party moved for a stay. I, therefore, continue to press on toward our trial set to begin on Oct. 17, 2022,” wrote McCormick in a letter.
McCormick is due to rule over a five-day non-jury trial in which Twitter is arguing that Musk should be forced to complete the deal. Musk, meanwhile, is countersuing arguing that that Twitter had underestimated the number of bot and spam accounts on the platform – reducing the company’s value and rending the deal invalid. Both lawsuits were due to be heard together.
Rumours had persisted that Musk looked likely to lose the court battle and that the Tesla chief exec might have some embarrassing messages revealed through subpoenas. As it stands, it seems as though we will see those messages, after all.
Musk also tweeted yesterday that “Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app.”
