Twitter trial over Elon Musk merger to begin Oct. 17

Twitter Inc. TWTR, +1.76% and Tesla Inc. TSLA, +5.78% Chief Executive Elon Musk officially have a court date for their merger trial. Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick of the Delaware Chancery Court has set the trial for Oct. 17, according to an order filed late Thursday. The trial is scheduled to run through Oct. 21. McCormick earlier this month sided with Twitter’s request for an expedited trial that would begin this fall, while Musk’s representatives had been pushing for a February 2023 start. Musk agreed in April to purchase Twitter for $44 billion, but he said in early July that he was terminating the deal due to his concerns over the accuracy of Twitter’s public disclosures on bot accounts. Twitter is seeking to move forward with the merger under the original terms and recently scheduled a Sept. 13 shareholder vote on the matter. Twitter shares are up 1.5% in Friday morning trading. They’ve lost 15.4% over the past three months as the S&P 500 SPX, +1.42% has fallen 0.6%.