Judge Rules on Making Musk's Twitter Suit Public

Update: Elon Musk’s answer to Twitter’s lawsuit over his attempt to back out of a $44 billion deal to buy the social media company will be made public by Friday evening at the latest, a judge ruled Wednesday. Attorneys for Musk wanted to file a public version of their answer and counterclaims in Delaware court Wednesday, the AP reports. But Twitter attorneys complained that they needed more time to review and potentially redact Musk’s sealed filing, saying it refers "extensively" to internal Twitter information and data given to Musk. Chancellor Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick agreed with Twitter, directing that the public filing be docketed by 5pm Friday. Edward Micheletti, a Musk attorney, accused Twitter of "burying the side of the story it does not want publicly disclosed." Our story from July 29 follows:

Elon Musk on Friday countersued Twitter, though few details of the suit are available as he filed it confidentially. The suit could be made public, however, possibly as soon as next week, with sensitive details redacted, CNBC reports. Twitter sued Musk when he said he was backing out of his deal to buy the social media company because he believes it is lying about the number of spam and bot accounts it has; the Wall Street Journal reports that one of Musk's counterclaims in his response to Twitter's lawsuit is expected to have to do with that issue. Musk is arguing, the Journal's sources say, that Twitter changed its number of monetizable daily active users shortly after it agreed to Musk's offer, and then did not give Musk's team adequate responses to their queries about users.

The countersuit, sources say, includes a reference to the Warren Buffett quote, "Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked." The sources say that's referring to Musk's claim that Twitter tried to hide how many fake accounts it has "because it knew the market downturn could reveal its weaknesses," per the Journal. On Thursday, a judge scheduled the five-day Twitter-Musk trial to start Oct. 17. (More Elon Musk stories.)