Earlier this year, word of Elon Musk buying Twitter caused a buzz all over the world – drawing some people in with the promise of free speech on the platform, and pushing others away due to the billionaire’s past antics. As plenty predicted, though, the potential deal seems to be falling apart after the Tesla CEO sent a letter to the board today (July 8) stating his intent to terminate the acquisition.
Musk and his legal team feel as though Twitter allegedly “didn’t hand over business information that [he] has requested” though it remains unclear exactly what the father of nine was looking for.
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In the past, the 51-year-old has shared posts about waiting on information about spam accounts before a deal could be reached. “Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users,” he wrote in May.
At the end of that same month, we reported about Musk attempting to lower the agreed-upon $44B price tag, which inevitably got him sued by the company’s shareholders. In June, he accused the platform of breaching their acquisition deal over bot accounts, and now, a month later, it appears that things have finally reached their breaking point.
In response to the engineer’s letter this morning, the chair of Twitter’s board, Bret Taylor, tweeted on Friday, “[the 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.”
He added, “We are confident we will prevail in the Delaware Court of Chancery.”
According to CBC, Twitter could have pushed for a $1B U.S. breakup fee that Musk agreed to pay under the circumstances they’ve found themselves now, but instead, they appear ready to fight over the deal which both the board and CEO Parag Agrawal are insistent upon consummating.
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