Elon Musk is saying sayonara to the $44 billion Twitter deal that made headlines months ago. The billionaire genius, known for his visionary companies Tesla and SpaceX, no longer wants to purchase the blue bird social media platform.
Musk’s attorneys released a statement via the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission declaring that Musk ended the deal after the company did not fulfill their side of the agreement.
Suspecting the overvaluation of Twitter’s analytical credibility, Musk had requested that the company provide statements showing the transparency of the platform’s activities, including legitimate account numbers and use of spam bots. In addition, Musk was not pleased with the personnel changes that resulted in employee layoffs and the termination of two high-ranking executives.
The Merger Agreement required Twitter to give Musk data relevant “for any reasonable business purpose related to the consummation of the transaction.” Musk claims he has pursued this information for nearly two months in order to “make an independent assessment of the prevalence of fake or spam accounts on Twitter’s platform,” claiming that the information is pertinent to the business and financial performance of Twitter.
“Twitter has failed or refused to provide this information. 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,” the SEC filing stated.
Despite Musk’s withdraw from the deal, Twitter could file a suit to coerce the entrepreneur into buying the platform at the agreed upon price if the company proves that they did not make a “material breach of multiple provisions of agreement.”
Bret Taylor, the Chairman of Twitter, quickly addressed the breaking news with a statement on the platform.
“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,” read the statement. “We are confident we will prevail in the Delaware Court of Chancery.”
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.
— Bret Taylor (@btaylor) July 8, 2022
The story is still developing…
