Twitter has hired elite law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz as it readies for a legal battle against Elon Musk, who has moved to terminate his $44bn acquisition of the social media company, according to two people familiar with the situation.
The San Francisco company is preparing to file its lawsuit with the Delaware Court of Chancery against Musk early this week, one of the people said. Musk said on Friday that he planned to walk away from his deal to buy Twitter, citing three breaches of the merger agreement by the social media platform.
Read More: Elon Musk Threatens To Abandon $44 Billion Twitter Deal
In response, Twitter vowed to hold the mercurial billionaire to his original deal terms and price of $54.20 per share, in what could develop into a messy legal fight that would dictate the future of the company.
Wachtell Lipton has perhaps the leading litigation practice in Delaware, where the majority of US public companies are incorporated. It defends companies in lawsuits over breach of fiduciary duty and broken merger agreements in the state.
The firm had initially defended Musk in a shareholder lawsuit brought in Delaware by Tesla shareholders who alleged that Musk had improperly bailed out SolarCity, another piece of his empire, when Tesla acquired the clean energy company in 2017.
The recent drop in Tesla’s stock has put Musk’s ability to finance his acquisition of Twitter in “major peril” since he has pledged his shares as collateral to secure the loans he needs to buy the company.
