A Delaware judge ruled on Tuesday that Twitter and Elon Musk will go to trial in October to determine whether the billionaire must finish buying the social media company for $44 billion.

The decision was the first in a lawsuit Twitter launched this month to compel Musk, the richest man in the world, to complete the ground-breaking deal. In April, Musk agreed to buy Twitter, but this month he said he wanted to back out of the deal. In an effort to move the case along, Twitter had asked for a September trial date. Musk responded by asking for a February trial date.

Kathaleen St. J. McCormick, the judge overseeing the case in the Delaware Court of Chancery said, “The longer the merger transaction remains in limbo, the larger a cloud of uncertainty is cast over the company." These remarks were made after a hearing which lasted for nearly two hours. 

The decision was favourable to Twitter, which argued that a longer deadline would give Musk more time to press the business and seek an alternative to the agreement. According to McCormick's decision, the trial will span five days; the actual date will depend on the court's and the attorneys' schedules.

“We are pleased that the court agreed to expedite this trial,” a Twitter spokesman said.

Alex Spiro, a lawyer representing Musk, said, “We’ll be ready.”

Musk promised to take Twitter private and believed the firm had a lot of potential when he agreed to buy it. But after a few weeks, he started complaining that Twitter was hindering his efforts to figure out how many accounts on its network were fraudulent and that the corporation was withholding important information from him.

According to reports on Twitter, Musk was looking for a way to back out of the purchase when the stock market declined. The business claims that it cooperated with Musk to provide him with details about bot accounts on the social media platform.

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