Elon Musk revealed that he plans to end his $44-billion bid to buy Twitter, claiming there were several breaches related to the deal.
Tesla’s CEO announced he had decided to buy social media giant Twitter in April. However, he said yesterday that he would step back because the company had not provided enough details on the actual number of spam and fake accounts.
The two sides have been locked in a long-running battle since the billionaire businessman said he intended to buy the social media firm.
In May, Mr. Musk revealed that the deal had been temporarily put on hold while he waited for data on the platforms’ existing bot and spam accounts. Back then, the world’s richest man asked the company for evidence to back up its claims that bot and spam accounts accounted for less than 5% of Twitter’s total users.
However, the firm reportedly failed or refused to provide such information, a letter filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission showed.
“Sometimes Twitter has ignored Mr. Musk’s requests, sometimes it has rejected them for reasons that appear to be unjustified, and sometimes it has claimed to comply while giving Mr. Musk incomplete or unusable information,” it reads.
Mr. Musk estimates that spam or bot accounts, which send out information en masse and influence how people interact with the platform, account for 20% or more of Twitter’s user base.
Recently, the company said it had removed around a million bot, spam, or fake accounts every day. However, the business mogul has questioned the veracity of such reports.
Twitter responded to Mr. Musk’s announcement by saying it planned to seek legal action to enforce the multimillion-dollar deal.
“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. We are confident we will prevail in the Delaware Court of Chancery,” Twitter chairman Bret Taylor wrote in a tweet on Friday. According to official reports, the original merger agreement included a $1 billion break-up fee.
After Mr. Musk revealed that he planned to end his bid to buy Twitter, the company’s shares fell by 7% in extended trading.
