Elon Musk wants to cancel the purchase of Twitter. The billionaire believes that the company has violated the terms of the agreement by providing misleading information. Twitter will now sue Musk, announces board chairman Bret Taylor.
The article has been updated.
“Twitter’s board is determined to complete the deal for the price and terms agreed with Mr. Musk and plans to take legal action to enforce the merger agreement,” Taylor wrote in a post on Twitter.
“We are convinced that we will win.”
Elon Musk – who is considered the richest man in the world – has previously indicated that he is prepared to cancel the deal, which is worth 44 billion dollars, equivalent to 440 billion kronor. He has expressed concern about the large number of spam and fake accounts that are ravaging the platform.
“Twitter has failed”
Tesla CEO Mike Ringler’s lawyer writes in a letter to Twitter’s legal department that Musk wants to withdraw his bid and cancel the purchase because the company has not “fulfilled its contractual obligations”, reports CNBC.
Twitter has previously stated that less than five percent of user accounts are fake, but Musk does not believe that the company has succeeded in showing. On the contrary, Twitter has provided misleading information, according to Musk.
“Twitter has failed or refused to provide this information,” the lawyer wrote, adding that Twitter both ignored and rejected several of Musk’s questions and that some were “incomplete or unusable information.”
That the uncertainty surrounding the fake accounts seemed to be the drop, the Washington Post reported already on Thursday. A source told the newspaper that Musk was about to “change direction” regarding the deal.
Messy for the Twitter share
Uncertainty surrounding Musk’s acquisition caused Twitter shares to fall several percent on Wall Street, both in Thursday’s aftermath and on Friday.
Elon Musk’s many outbursts – not infrequently directly to his 100 million followers on Twitter – have upset it for the share price, ever since it became known in April that he made a bid. Twitter’s share is traded today well below the $ 54.20 he was willing to pay per share then.
In addition to the tours around the fake accounts, Musk, for example, has said that he wants fewer rules for what may and may not be said on Twitter.
Musk recently criticized Twitter for permanently shutting users off the platform. One example is former US President Donald Trump.
“Musk knew the problem”
Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush, describes in a statement to investors what is now happening as a “disaster scenario for Twitter and its board”, writes AP.
Ives traces a protracted battle in court, which could end either with the deal being completed or Musk buying himself free through an agreed fee of one billion dollars.
Christopher Bouzy at the analysis company Bot Sentinel believes that the amount of fake accounts on Twitter should not have come as a surprise to Elon Musk.
– He knew about the problem. It is strange that he uses fines, trolls and fake accounts as a way to get out of the business, he tells AP.
– The whole process is bizarre.
[related_posts_by_tax taxonomies=”post_tag”]
The post Musk wants to withdraw from the Twitter purchase – sued by the company appeared first on Gamingsym.