Elon Musk Files To Back Out of $44 Billion USD Twitter Deal
Musk and Twitter finalized the terms of the deal in April.
Elon Musk is officially attempting to backpedal on his $44 billion USD agreement to buy Twitter. In a letter to Twitter on Friday, Musk’s legal team alleges that Twitter hasn’t complied with the contractual agreements of its deal with Musk.
The letter says that “Mr. Musk is terminating the Merger Agreement because Twitter is in material breach of multiple provisions of that Agreement” and claims that the company “appears to have made false and misleading representations upon which Mr. Musk relied when entering into the Merger Agreement.”
What Musk appears to be referencing is his claims that there are multiple bots and spam accounts on the platform. “Mr. Musk’s goal was to understand how many of Twitter’s claimed mDAUs were, in fact, fake or spam accounts,” the letter reads.
Musk’s legal team argues that despite his multiple requests for data on the amount of Twitter bots so that he could assess for himself, the platform “provided only incomplete data that was not sufficient to perform such an independent assessment.” According to the July 8 letter, Musk had requested the data in several other letters, dated June 6, June 17 and June 29.
Musk submitted a filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday as his official bid to bail on the deal.
Twitter chairman Bret Taylor confirmed that the company still plans to follow through with its deal with Musk, even if they must pursue legal action against him. “The Twitter Board is committed to closing the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon with Mr. Musk and plans to pursue legal action to enforce the merger agreement,” Taylor wrote in a tweet. “We are confident we will prevail in the Delaware Court of Chancery.”
Twitter shares, which jumped after Musk revealed his plans to purchase the company in April, have fallen by nearly 6% following the latest news of his attempt to pull out of the deal.
In other tech news, Apple iPhone 14 Pro pricing is expected to increase by $100 USD.
