Elon Musk countersues Twitter over $44bn deal amid fresh legal action by shareholder

Elon Musk has countersued Twitter, escalating his legal fight against the social media company over his bid to walk away from the $44bn purchase.

Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Also on Friday, Musk was sued by a Twitter shareholder who asked the court to order the billionaire to close the deal, find that he breached his fiduciary duty to Twitter shareholders and award damages for losses caused.

McCormick fast-tracked the case to trial last week, saying she wanted to limit the potential harm to Twitter caused by the uncertainty of the deal.

Twitter has blamed the court fight for slumping revenue and causing chaos within the company.

The two sides had basically agreed to a 17 October trial, but were at odds over the limits of discovery, or access to internal documents and other evidence.

Musk accused Twitter this week of dragging its feet in response to his discovery requests, and Twitter accused him of seeking huge amounts of data irrelevant to the main issue in the case: whether Musk had violated the deal contract.