Officially, Elon Musk is attempting to scuttle the $44 billion acquisition of Twitter. Musk’s attorneys said in an SEC filing that the Tesla CEO wants to end the contract due to “false and misleading claims” made by Twitter.
Twitter’s Board of Directors issued a statement in which it said that it still “intends to close the deal” and will sue Musk. The Board of Directors stated, “We are committed to finalizing the acquisition on the price and terms agreed upon with Mr. Musk and plan to pursue legal action to enforce the merger agreement.” We’re sure we’ll win in the Delaware Court of Chancery.
Over how the firm calculates the amount of bots and false accounts on the network, Twitter and Musk have been at odds for months. Musk’s attorneys claim that Twitter both omitted information and deceived Musk about the actual figures in the letter sent to the SEC.
Twitter handed some of its internal “firehose” of data to Musk to support its long-standing claim that less than 5% of its daily users are fraudulent accounts. The new information hasn’t, however, satisfied Musk, who has persisted in contesting Twitter’s official projections.
Although Twitter hasn’t yet given Musk all the information he needs to do a thorough review of spam and fake accounts, according to Musk’s attorneys, it appears Twitter is significantly understating the number.
A Twitter representative cited the company’s board of directors’ announcement that legal action will be taken to force the purchase to conclude. The Financial Times reported earlier on Friday that CEO Parag Agrawal has been “more combative internally” and that Twitter is “ready to go to battle” to seal the deal.
What happens next is unclear, but it appears Musk and Twitter will certainly engage in a protracted legal dispute. The news is especially bad for Twitter, which has already seen billions of dollars removed from its market valuation, stopped the majority of its hiring, and fired close to 100 staff members in an effort to reduce costs as it pursues a deal. Employees at Twitter may already be anxious about what their futures might hold under a Musk-owned firm; a protracted legal battle is likely to make them even more so.
 and the world's richest person, said on Friday he was terminating his $44 billion deal to buy Twitter.){kind=link}