Musk plans to countersue Twitter to scrap $44 bn deal: Report

San Francisco, July 19 (IANS) Tech billionaire Elon Musk has reportedly planned to file a counter-lawsuit against micro-blogging site Twitter to scrap a $44 billion acquisition deal.

Musk's lawyers are angling to push a Delaware Court of Chancery judge to grant them more time and power to gather information about bots on Twitter, citing sources, The New York Post reported on late Monday.

A protracted legal battle could also potentially drag down the company's stock, giving Musk more leverage to renegotiate Twitter's sale price. The news comes less than a week after the microblogging site sued Tesla CEO in Delaware, accusing the mogul of agreeing to buy the site then attempting to "trash the company, disrupt its operations, destroy stockholder value, and walk away".

Twitter's lawyers are pushing for a four-day trial starting in September, while Musk wants the trial to open no earlier than February 2023.

"Twitter's sudden request for warp speed after two months of foot-dragging and obfuscation is its latest tactic to shroud the truth about spam accounts long enough to railroad defendants into closing," Musk's legal team wrote.Recently, Musk officially pulled out of his $44 billion agreement to purchase the microblogging site.

In a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Musk's team claimed he was terminating the deal because Twitter was in "material breach" of their agreement and had made "false and misleading" statements during negotiations.

The platform has claimed that it is suspending nearly 1 million spam accounts a day.

A recent report indicated that Twitter lawyers from Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz law firms were preparing for a long-drawn court battle after Musk filed paperwork with the US SEC to exit the acquisition deal.