This week, attorneys representing Elon Musk filed a lawsuit against Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, petitioning to reclaim $90 million in legal fees that Musk's Twitter asserts were too high and superfluous. Wachtell was given a multi-million dollar payment for its assistance in convincing Musk to conclude the Twitter acquisition last year. Musk has a lengthy track record of not compensating vendors.This week, attorneys representing Elon Musk filed a lawsuit against the law firm that provided legal services to Twitter when Musk attempted to take the company private in 2021, stating that the firm charged too much for its work. X Corp., the Twitter holding company, alleges that Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen, and Katz, which was the company's firm prior to the acquisition, accrued a $90 million "last minute" fee for its role in the deal. The suit further claims that the fee was paid at a higher rate than the public market valuation of Twitter. X Corp. has also requested financial compensation for the cost of the litigation and attorney's fees. Musk's legal team is Reid Collins & Tsai, an Austin, Texas-based divorce litigation firm.Reid Collins and Wachtell have not responded to requests for comment. This is not the first example of Musk's disagreement with Twitter’s vendors. After Musk took control of Twitter, the company was sued over twenty-six times for the non-payment of services. The company failed to pay rent on its San Francisco headquarters and refused to pay Google for cloud usage.This time, though, Musk's challenge is to one of the most esteemed law firms in the United States, which has assisted companies and investment groups in a variety of similar deals. Wachtell had proposed a partnership to the Twitter executives in June 2021, expressing willingness to represent Twitter as Musk's offer was potentially deteriorating. The court battle occurred in the Delaware chancery court, which is specific to corporate litigation, and was upheld when Musk complied with the original agreement. The case is X Corp v Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz in the California Superior Court (County of San Francisco), Case No. CGC-23-607461.— CNBC's Lora Kolodny contributed to this report.
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