Twitter claims Musk is 'slow-walking' trial over $44 billion deal

By Tom Hals

WILMINGTON, Del. (Reuters) - Twitter Inc on Monday accused Elon Musk of trying to "slow walk" the company's lawsuit to hold him to his $44 billion takeover and urged a September trial to ensure deal financing remains in place, according to a court filing.

"Millions of Twitter shares trade daily under a cloud of Musk-created doubt," the company wrote. "No public company of this size and scale has ever had to bear these uncertainties."

Twitter has sued Musk and asked a Delaware judge to order him to complete the merger at the agreed price of $54.20 per share.

The company said if Musk is ordered to close the deal it could still take months of additional litigation to close the debt financing, which expires in April. For that reason, Twitter asked the judge to reject Musk's proposal to hold the trial in February.

Musk, who is the world's richest person and chief executive of electric carmaker Telsa Inc, accused San Francisco-based Twitter of rushing the trial to obscure the truth about spam accounts and to "railroad" him into buying the company.

The two sides will make their arguments about the trial's proposed start date to a Delaware Court of Chancery judge on Tuesday.

The New York Post reported on Monday that Musk's lawyers are planning to countersue Twitter to gather more information about spam accounts.

Shares of Twitter have fallen from more than $50 per share when the deal was announced in April to below $33 a share last week. Twitter's stock closed on Monday at $38.41, up 1.8%.

(Reporting by Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)