Twitter's lawsuit against Elon Musk heads to Oct. 17 trial

A Delaware judge ordered a five-day trial to run Oct. 17-21 in Twitter Inc's lawsuit seeking to hold Elon Musk to his $44 billion deal for the social media platform, according to a court filing made public on Friday.

Musk, the world's richest person and chief executive of Telsa Inc, also must file any counterclaims by 5 pm ET on Friday, according to the order signed Thursday by Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick of the Delaware Court of Chancery.

Musk's lawyers have said he might file counterclaims, essentially his own lawsuit against Twitter, in which he could seek financial damages for the disputed deal.

Musk said he was walking away from the deal on July 8, blaming Twitter for breaching the merger agreement by misrepresenting the number of fake accounts on the platform.

Twitter sued days later, calling the fake account claims a distraction and saying Musk is bound by the merger contract to close the deal at $54.20 per share.