Elon Musk Seeks Stay Of Twitter Litigation For Oct. 28 Deal Close

After a few days of relative quiet on the docket, Elon Musk has filed a motion to stay legal action in Twitter v. Musk et al., saying the circumstances have changed and his team now expects his $44B buyout of Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) to close Oct. 28 or earlier.

That action isn’t likely to go far, though, as it only comes from Musk’s team and lacks a response from Twitter – which would suggest the two sides aren’t much closer to settling their issues than they were yesterday. It’s a motion to stay, though, and will compel some court action.

Meanwhile, the two sides are racing to complete an agreement on the litigation by Monday, the WSJ says it’s heard from a source.

A volume burst into Twitter stock has evened out with the shares roughly where they were, down 1.3% on the day to $50.63 each, vs. Musk’s committed deal price of $54.20 per share.

Multiple media reports suggest the issues in contention now are the debt financing conditions to the $44B take-private deal. Banks including Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and Barclays are set to provide some $13B in debt for the deal.

Musk’s team is accusing Twitter of bogging down process, the NYT notes: “Twitter will not take yes for an answer. Astonishingly, they have insisted on proceeding with this litigation, recklessly putting the deal at risk and gambling with their stockholders’ interests,” attorneys for Mr. Musk wrote in a legal filing.

“Proceeding toward trial is not only an enormous waste of party and judicial resources, it will undermine the ability of the parties to close the transaction.”