Elon Musk Announces ENDING His $44 Billion Twitter Acquisition Over Spam Bots – But CEO and Fellow Sun Valley Participant Come Back, Say Company Will Sue Him
- In April 2022, Elon Musk first offered to buy Twitter in a deal worth about $44 billion
- Musk has since dropped the deal due to issues with the number of fake accounts on the platform
- Musk cited material violation of multiple terms of the agreement in a letter dropping the bomb
- Twitter’s chairman remains defiant, saying the company is confident they can force the deal
- The news comes just days after Musk confirmed he secretly fathered twins with Shivon Zilis
Elon Musk has dramatically announced that it is pulling the plug on its $44 billion acquisition of Twitter with its legal team accusing the social media giant of failing to provide accurate data on the number of fake and spam accounts on the platform.
Musk, 51, first made his offer to buy Twitter in April after becoming the company’s largest shareholder, but there has been repeated evidence since April that he wanted to pull out of the deal.
The richest man in the world had previously dropped out of the deal after claiming he wanted his team to do “due diligence” over the number of fake accounts on the platform.
In a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission dropping the bomb, Mike Ringler, attorney for Skadden Arps, said Twitter was in material breach of multiple provisions of the agreement.
Ringler wrote: “Twitter has failed to fulfill its contractual obligations.” He also accused the company of “making false and misleading statements” when entering into the agreement.
It was previously reported that Musk would pay $1 billion if he pulled out of the deal. Twitter could still try to hold Musk to the original deal or force a bigger payout from him if he walks out at 11 a.m.
In a brief statement on Twitter, Chairman Bret Taylor said: “The Twitter board is committed to closing the transaction at the price and terms agreed with Mr. Musk and intends to take legal action to enforce the merger agreement. We are confident that we will prevail in the Delaware Court of Chancery.”
So far there has only been a brief statement from Twitter about Musk pulling the plug
In a bombshell letter, Musk’s legal team said Twitter materially violated multiple provisions of the agreement
Last month, Twitter gave Musk access to its ‘firehose’, a repository of raw data on hundreds of millions of daily tweets
Part of the letter reads: “Twitter has failed to fulfill its contractual obligations. For nearly two months, Mr. Musk has searched for the data and information needed to “make an independent assessment of the prevalence of fake or spam accounts on the Twitter platform.”
Musk’s legal team also accuses Twitter of ignoring and denying requests for data related to fake accounts.
Musk had threatened to pull the deal unless the company proves that spam and bot accounts accounted for less than 5% of users seeing ads on the social media service.
Last month, Twitter gave Musk access to its “firehose,” a repository of raw data on hundreds of millions of daily tweets.
The Tesla founder’s team found that the number of fake accounts on the side was much higher than the 5% made public, Musk said.
On the day of the announcement, Twitter shares fell 7% in extended trading. Musk offered $54.20 a share in April.
The news comes days after Musk confirmed he has secretly fathered twins with Neuralink, director of operations, Shivon Zilis, pictured above.
In June, Twitter’s board voted unanimously to accept Musk’s offer.
The news comes days after Musk confirmed he has secretly fathered twins with Neuralink, director of operations, Shivon Zilis.
Musk has not tweeted about the decision to pull out the teal. In his last tweet, the day before the announcement, the South African billionaire wrote: “Super excited for future product development with our amazing Tesla team! What an honor to work with them.’
Among those who took note of the situation was Donald Trump Jr., who tweeted: ”