Twitter wins first battle in lawsuit with Musk after judge agrees to move the case forward on an expedited schedule

• Elon Musk and Twitter's legal teams Tuesday squared off in court for the first time.
• The Delaware Court of Chancery granted Twitter its first request in its legal battle against Musk.

The Delaware Court of Chancery granted Twitter its first request in its legal battle against Elon Musk — a step that could set the company up for more wins.

Kathaleen St. J. McCormick, the judge overseeing the case, ultimately sided with Twitter at the end of the first hearing in its lawsuit against Musk. Twitter asked the court to hear the case on an expedited basis to resolve the issue of whether Musk is allowed to back out of his $44 billion acquisition of the company, as he is attempting to do, before the end of October. McCormick, whose official title in the court is chancellor, agreed to do so, pointing to the "business risk" Twitter is exposed to. The case is now set to go to trial in October and last for five days.

"The longer the merger transaction remains in limbo, the larger a cloud of uncertainty is cast over the company," McCormick said Tuesday.

Her decision is in line with the arguments made by Twitter's lawyers. During the Tuesday hearing, Twitter's lawyer William Savitt said Twitter was being harmed every day that the case went unresolved. He added that Musk was attempting to "delay this trial to avoid a reckoning in hopes of wearing Twitter down, running down the clock, and increasing his leverage."

Twitter last week asked for a speedy trial. Musk's legal team pushed back, saying the schedule Twitter proposed was "onerous" and did not leave enough time for fact discovery and depositions. They asked that the case instead go to trial in February.

During the hearing, McCormick said little, but she did interrupt Musk's lawyer once as he was arguing for a February trial date. She asked him about a case involving IPB Inc. and how long it took to get to trial. Before he could answer, she did, saying the case took only three months to get resolved.

Experts previously told Insider it would be in Twitter's best interest to resolve the court battle as soon as possible but that no matter the outcome, the company would likely face more shareholder lawsuits. Erik Gordon, a professor at the University of Michigan's business school, previously said Musk could drag the court battle on for years and attempt to appeal the case if he lost.

Twitter's stock sits at about 20% below what it was when Musk agreed in April to acquire the company and take it private.

The following months have been chaotic for the platform, with Musk in May beginning to take public issue with the number of "bots," or spam accounts, on Twitter and requesting massive amounts of data to run his own analysis. It resulted in Musk earlier this month sending Twitter a letter saying he was terminating the merger agreement because the company had repeatedly breached his information rights.

Twitter is now arguing in court that Musk's decision is nothing more than a case of "buyer's remorse" and that he should be forced to close the deal.