The Orlando Police Pension Fund, which owns Twitter stock, filed a lawsuit in May in an effort to thwart Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s plans to buy the social media giant. The dismissal of this action on Friday removes yet another barrier in the way of Musk’s eventual acquisition of Twitter.
The Orlando Police Pension Fund filed a complaint against Twitter, its board, Elon Musk, and Morgan Stanley, which is assisting Musk with the acquisition, alleging that they had a “agreement, arrangement, or understanding” on the potential acquisition before the proposal was made public. Additionally, it charged that by accepting Musk’s offer, the Twitter Board had “breached its fiduciary obligation.”
Musk bought shares of the social media site over the course of several months prior to his revelation that he intended to buy Twitter and his subsequent agreement with the firm. The CEO of Tesla became Twitter’s sole stakeholder after conducting a covert acquisition of 9.2 percent of the firm.
According to an Insider article, the pension fund claimed that Elon Musk would become a “interested party” under Delaware law as a result of any agreement between the parties involved in the lawsuit, all of whom also happen to be Twitter stockholders. The fund also said that the Twitter acquisition proposal would need to be postponed by three years if Musk was a “interested party.”
Thus, it would be necessary to stop Musk from acquiring Twitter before 2025.
Weeks of discovery and depositions that included an undisclosed, three-hour interview with Elon Musk came next. In the end, the fund consented to the lawsuit being dismissed “with prejudice,” which meant that it would not be permitted to bring the same allegations against Twitter in the future.
On Friday, the action was finally thrown out by a judge in the Delaware Chancery Court.
It’s interesting that Musk has been away from Twitter for a while while the Orlando Police Pension Fund’s case has been dismissed. Both his supporters and detractors have speculated on the reasons behind what appears to be an extended absence, at least by the CEO’s Twitter standards, since Musk has not posted anything on the social media platform for more than a week.