Twitter sued Musk after he decided to back out of a $44 billion acquisition deal. (File)
Washington:
The dispute between Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Twitter is taking many turns.
According to new reports, Elon Musk sent a text to Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal on June 28, recently but before exiting the deal, saying the company’s lawyers were trying to “make trouble” after seeking information about financial details. Musk said he plans to complete the acquisition of Twitter.
“Your lawyers are using these conversations to create trouble. This must stop,” Musk’s text reads. Musk sent the private message after Twitter asked Musk how he would finance the Twitter deal.
A few days ago, Twitter sued Musk after he decided to back out of a $44 billion acquisition deal.
The Verge reports that the lawsuit was filed Tuesday in Delaware Court of Chancery, accusing Musk of hypocrisy: “Twitter is taking this action to compel Musk to comply with his legal obligations and, once secured, to compel Musk to complete the merger. . of several outstanding terms,” Twitter wrote in the lawsuit. The lawsuit marks the beginning of a lengthy legal battle as Twitter tries to force Musk to settle a deal to pay $54.20 per share for the company. M&A law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, represented by Twitter, argued that Musk was seeking a way out of the deal that would require a “material adverse effect” or breach of contract.
Musk had to try to conjure up one of those,” the lawsuit said. Earlier this month, Musk announced in a letter to Twitter that Musk’s team had terminated the Twitter purchase agreement.
Musk decided to terminate the deal due to multiple breaches of the purchase agreement. In April, Musk reached an agreement to buy Twitter for $54.20 per share in a deal valued at about $44 billion. However, Musk put the deal on hold in May to allow his team to verify Twitter’s claim that fewer than 5 percent of accounts on the platform are bots or spam.
Back in June, Musk publicly accused the microblogging website of violating the merger agreement and threatened to walk away from buying the social media company after it failed to provide the information it requested on spam and fake accounts. Citing a letter he sent to Twitter’s head of legal, policy and trust Vijaya Gadde, CNN reported that Musk alleged that Twitter “actively resisted and violated his data rights” as outlined in the contract.
Musk has demanded Twitter hand over data on its testing methodologies to support its claims that bots and fake accounts make up less than 5 percent of the platform’s active user base, a number the company has consistently stated in public statements over the years.
