Judge denies Elon Musk’s request to delay Twitter trial following whistleblower disclosure

By Clare Duffy, CNN Business

A Delaware judge on Wednesday denied Elon Musk’s request to delay his trial with Twitter over their $44 billion acquisition deal after a former top executive alleged the company has serious security vulnerabilities.

However, Musk’s team will be allowed to add arguments based on the former executive’s whistleblower disclosure to its case arguing the Tesla CEO should be allowed to walk away from the deal.

The trial is set to run for five days starting October 17. Musk’s attorneys last week moved to push back the trial by about a month and asked the judge for permission to update their counter-claims in light of the disclosure from former Twitter security head Peiter Zatko.

Zatko alleged that Twitter has misled Musk and the public about the prevalence of bots and spam accounts on its platform, an issue that Musk has made central to his argument to end the deal. Musk’s team last week also filed an additional termination letter claiming that Zatko’s allegations — including that Twitter has grave security violations and that it is in violation of a 2011 FTC consent order — provide additional justification for Musk to exit the deal.

Twitter has criticized Zatko and broadly defended itself against the allegations, saying the disclosure paints a “false narrative” of the company and is “riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies.” The company’s lawyers have also argued Musk is looking for a pretense to get out of a deal he now views as overvalued.

Delaware Chancery Court Judge Kathaleen McCormick said in her Wednesday decision that “even four weeks’ delay [of the trial] would risk further harm to Twitter too great to justify.”

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