All eyes on courts: Twitter shareholders on verge of approving Elon Musk takeover

Twitter shareholders are on the verge of approving Elon Musk’s $44bn takeover of the social media firm, putting all eyes on the ongoing court battle.

Sources told the Wall Street Journal that early shareholder votes suggest investors are keen to green light the deal, and votes are scheduled to take place at 1pm Eastern time today.

Musk is the company’s largest shareholder, with a roughly 10 per cent stake, and could, in theory, vote on the matter.

However, insiders told the publication that this was unlikely considering the legal battle taking place in court.

The billionaire’s legal team recently called for the trial, which is scheduled for October, to delayed, citing recent whistleblower claims about the company’s practices.

Twitter’s former head of security Peiter Zatko said in a complaint to US regulators in June that Twitter had falsely represented its data security plans.

In his complaint to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), he accuses Twitter of deceiving shareholders and violating the agreement it made with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to uphold security standards.

Musk’s lawyers are using the whistleblower’s claims to suggest that Twitter had made a number of violations to its buyout agreement with the Tesla founder.

Speaking at a hearing in Delaware, Musk’s lawyer Alex Spiro said: “Doesn’t justice demand a few weeks to look into this?”

Meanwhile, Twitter said Zatko’s allegations were a “false narrative”.

As reported by Bloomberg, Twitter noted that the bots issue, which has been a major point of contention for Musk, wasn’t a part of Zatko’s “portfolio” of work, stating that he oversaw computer-security issues instead.

Musk has suggested that as many as a third of Twitter’s users could be bots, misleading his team when the deal was first agreed earlier this year.

Zatko is due to speak at a US Senate hearing later today over supposed security concerns.

These factors are key driver for the world’s richest man’s countersuit against Twitter

The main ambition for the social media giant is to convince the Delaware court to force the billionaire to pay the $54.20-per-share deal he originally agreed to in April.

If shareholders vote in favour of the deal, the success of the takeover will now be in the hands of Delaware judges.