Alex Kantrowitz
A Judge granted Elon Musk’s request to include a whistleblower’s claims in his Twitter lawsuit.
The judge also denied Musk’s legal team’s request to delay the October trial.
Last month, Twitter’s former head of cybersecurity came forward with wide-ranging allegations.
A Delaware judge on Wednesday ruled that Elon Musk’s legal team can amend its countersuit against Twitter to include new details alleged by a former executive-turned-whistleblower last month.
Chancery Court Judge Kathaleen St. J. McCormick also denied Musk’s request to delay the trial in light of the claims made by Twitter’s former head of cybersecurity Peter Zatko, also known by his hacker name “Mudge.”
“I previously rejected Defendants’ arguments in response to Twitter’s motion to expedite, making clear that the longer the delay until trial, the greater the risk of irreparable harm to Twitter,” McCormick said in a filing. “I am convinced that even four weeks’ delay would risk further harm to Twitter too great to justify.”
The judge ruled to expedite the case in July. The five-day trial is set to take place in October.
“We are hopeful that winning the motion to amend takes us one step closer to the truth coming out in that courtroom,” a lawyer for Musk, Alex Spiro of Skadden Arps, said.
A spokesperson for Twitter did not respond to a request for comment ahead of publication.
Last week, Musk said Zatko’s revelations — which Twitter says are “riddled with inaccuracies” — give him fresh reasons to walk away from his $44 billion deal to buy the social network. As a result, Musk’s legal team filed a motion to amend its complaint and delay the case last week.
Twitter first sued Musk after the Tesla CEO said he planned to walk away from the acquisition in July. In response, Musk’s legal team has argued Twitter intentionally misled him about the number of daily users and spam accounts on its site.
Now, Musk wants to include additional claims from Zatko, which include wide-ranging allegations of poor security practices and general mismanagement.
Twitter has disputed Zatko’s claims and said that he was fired for “ineffective leadership and poor performance.” On Tuesday, the company’s legal team said the cybersecurity chief never “had anything to do with spam” while he worked at Twitter and accused Zatko of “parroting” Musk’s allegations against the company.
Experts previously said the whistleblower’s complaint is unlikely to sway the case. Though, it could convince the social media company to settle with Musk for a lower purchase price.
“It’s certainly less than ideal for Twitter to have a former employee making claims like this now — and they raise Twitter’s risk in a general sense,” Matthew Schettenhelm, senior litigation analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, told Insider. “But when you dive into the details, they don’t give me a reason to think Musk has an edge in the Delaware case.”