A U.S. judge delayed a looming trial surrounding Elon Musk's proposed $44 billion acquisition of Twitter on Thursday, giving the parties until October 28 to close the deal.

Kathaleen McCormick, head of the Delaware Chancery Court, halted action in the case and said a trial originally set for October 17 will be rescheduled for November if the transaction does not close by the October 28 deadline.

Musk had asked to halt the upcoming Delaware court trial, where the Tesla billionaire was expected to fare poorly against Twitter's lawsuit to force him to complete his April merger agreement.

Musk revived the takeover offer on Monday but said he needed time to get the financing in order.

Twitter had asked McCormick earlier Thursday to proceed with the trial, saying the billionaire refuses to accept the "contractual obligations" of his April agreement to buy the social media company and take it private.

Twitter disputed Musk's claim that the San Francisco-based company is refusing to accept his renewed bid.

Musk told Twitter earlier this week he's ready to buy the company once again after trying to back out of the deal over the summer, accusing it of refusing to give him information about "spam bot" accounts on the service.

Twitter described Musk's move to delay the trial as "an invitation to further mischief and delay" after his arguments for terminating the agreement haven't had merit.

But after the judge's ruling, Twitter reiterated in a statement that it was ready to close the deal on the share price agreed upon in April: "We look forward to closing the transaction at $54.20 by October 28," referring to the price Musk originally offered for each Twitter share.

Brooklyn Law School professor Andrew Jennings said Twitter wants to be certain that the deal will get done and not allow "wiggle room for Musk to walk away again."

Musk's attorneys argued that Twitter was disagreeing with the trial delay "based on the theoretical possibility" of Musk not coming up with the financing, which they called "baseless speculation."

They said Musk's financial backers "have indicated that they are prepared to honor their commitments" and are working to close the deal by October 28. 

Musk's attorney Alex Spiro said in a statement Thursday that "Twitter offered Mr. Musk billions off the transaction price," but Musk "refused because Twitter attempted to put certain self-serving conditions on the deal." He didn't elaborate on what those conditions were. Twitter hasn't described the talks beyond what its attorneys have said in court.