Twitter Chief Executive Parag Agrawal was scheduled to sit for a deposition Monday but that is being rescheduled for personal reasons, some of the people said. The schedule changes aren’t due to settlement talks, they said.

Twitter and Mr. Musk also continue to battle over how much information they must provide one another in the discovery process. The Musk team has been aggressive in pushing for broad information from Twitter, including a range of employee communications and data related to spam and fake accounts.

Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey was scheduled to be interviewed by lawyers last week.PHOTO: MARCO BELLO/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

Mr. Musk’s requests at times have prompted frustration from the judge overseeing the case, Delaware Chancery Court Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick. She has declined to delay the trial on multiple occasions, limited the amount of data Mr. Musk’s team could access from Twitter about spam and fake accounts, and once called Mr. Musk’s data requests “absurdly broad.”

In an order Friday, the judge rejected a request from Mr. Musk’s team for access to thousands of Twitter documents that the company says are protected by attorney-client privilege, calling that request an “extreme remedy.” She is considering whether Twitter should have to produce a subset of those documents.

In another recent order, Chancellor McCormick declined to reconsider her denial of Mr. Musk’s request for access to certain Slack messages from dozens of Twitter employees, and said his attempt to request the information a second time “wastes judicial and litigant resources.”

PHOTO: PAUL SAKUMA/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Other times, the judge has been more sympathetic to Mr. Musk’s legal motions. In an order Thursday, she suggested Mr. Musk may be entitled to access other batches of material he is seeking, including internal technical documents.

Chancellor McCormick on Thursday also granted Mr. Musk’s request to add allegations from former Twitter security executive Peiter Zatko relating to a $7.75 million severance agreement. Mr. Musk’s lawyers say Twitter withheld information about the payment to Mr. Zatko, which they allege would have been required under Mr. Musk’s agreement to buy the company.

profile airpodsleswingcnbc

Mr. Zatko, in a whistleblower complaint to federal regulators, alleged Twitter failed to protect user data and misled regulators and investors about security problems. Twitter has said Mr. Zatko’s claims are inaccurate and that he was fired in January for poor performance.

Delaware Chancery Court Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick has declined to delay the trial on several occasions.PHOTO: ERIC CROSSAN/DELAWARE CHANCERY COURT

Chancellor McCormick is considering an information request from Twitter that seeks to learn whether Mr. Musk and his advisers had any knowledge about Mr. Zatko’s allegations before they became public in August. Whistleblower Aid, an organization that helped file the whistleblower claims, has said Mr. Zatko had never met or spoken with Mr. Musk before making his complaint.

A hearing on several outstanding pretrial issues is scheduled for Tuesday.

Twitter and Mr. Musk have been trying to lay the groundwork for the divergent narratives they aim to present when they face off at trial.

Twitter wants to keep the case closely centered on the contract Mr. Musk signed to buy the company, and his apparent buyer’s remorse weeks later. Mr. Musk wants a much broader set of facts to be at play, including Mr. Zatko’s allegations and questions about how Twitter treats spam accounts, as he seeks to make the case a broad referendum on the soundness of the social-media company’s business.

Elon Musk and his team have sought a range of information from Twitter, including employee communications and data related to spam and fake accounts.PHOTO: JIM WATSON/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

“Most of what you’ve seen so far is the parties pulling the judge one way or another” on big themes, said Boston College law professor Brian Quinn.

Tulane University law professor Ann Lipton said the stream of pretrial orders has shown a judge intent on keeping the case from becoming a sprawling, drawn-out affair, which is to Twitter’s benefit. “Every external indicator in the case so far is that Twitter is in a stronger position than Musk,” she said.

Stanford University law professor Joe Grundfest cautioned against reading too much into the preliminary proceedings, saying the court’s pretrial rulings have been down the middle.

“Each side will ask for everything, each side has tens of millions to spend on the litigation, and each side will want to boil the ocean,” Mr. Grundfest said. “This is traditional trench warfare.”

—Cara Lombardo contributed to this article.

Skip Bayless Roasted For Bizarre “Vanilla Vick” Tweet

Skip Bayless is one of the biggest provocateurs in the entire sports media landscape. He is always saying something that gets fans upset, and he has no issue with making people mad. Sometimes, he is oblivious to the reactions he’s getting, which makes it even more fun.

Every Sunday, Bayless can be seen spewing a whole bunch of nonsense in relation to the Dallas Cowboys. This stuff is all done through Twitter and depending on how well the team is playing, you can expect some varied reactions.

Skip Bayless & The Cowboys

Yesterday, Bayless’ Cowboys defeated the 8-1 Vikings by a score of 40-3. It was a wild scoreline that proved just how good the Cowboys can be. It was a huge result, and as one can imagine, Bayless was over the moon about it. Additionally, he was excited about the team’s game against the Giants on Thanksgiving.

In fact, this led to a bizarre tweet in which Bayless referred to Daniel Jones as “Vanilla Vick.” Of course, this is a reference to how Jones can run the ball like Michael Vick. Jones is white, hence the Vanilla nomenclature. While some found it humorous, others thought it was in poor taste.

Overall, this tweet led to a whole lot of reactions on social media. Bayless’ tweets always get a rise out of people, but this one was particularly scrutinized. After all, referring to a player as a vanilla version of anyone is going to make people raise an eyebrow in confusion.

As you can see in the tweets above, many called this a racist statement. Others were quick to point out that Jones was given the “Vanilla Vick” nickname by his teammate, Saquon Barkley. That piece of context is certainly important, although Bayless crossed a boundary in the eyes of many.