Musk’s legal team had initially asked for the trial to take place in 2023. Twitter’s legal team argued it was necessary to expedite the case in order to limit the “harm” to its business and to ensure the deal can be completed before Oct. 24, the “drop dead” date by which the two sides had previously agreed to close the deal.
Musk’s lawyer previously alleged that Twitter was “in material breach of multiple provisions” of the deal, claiming the company had withheld data Musk requested in order to evaluate the number of bots and spam accounts on the platform. Twitter’s legal team later called Musk’s attempted termination “invalid and wrongful” and suggested in the suit that Musk is using bots as a pretext to try to exit a deal over which he now has buyer’s remorse.
CNN Business’ Clare Duffy contributed to this report.