The confrontation between Twitter and Elon Musk is moving into a judicial plane. On July 12, the social network filed a lawsuit against the world’s richest man, claiming he was refusing to “fulfill his obligations” under the agreement. By doing so, Twitter is trying to force Musk to complete the deal to buy the social platform for $44 billion. A few days earlier, he announced the termination of the deal , explaining his refusal by the fact that Twitter was unable to satisfy his requests for information about bot activity and spam on the platform.
“Twitter is bringing this lawsuit to prevent Musk from further severing the relationship, to force Musk to comply with his legal obligations, and to force the merger to complete with several unmet conditions,” according to Twitter’s lawsuit, which was filed in the Delaware Court of Chancery, where the company is registered.
Twitter has filed a lawsuit in the Delaware Court of Chancery to hold Elon Musk accountable to his contractual obligations.
— Bret Taylor (@btaylor) July 12, 2022
Twitter Chairman Bret Taylor said in a brief tweet that the lawsuit is intended to “hold Elon Musk accountable.”
Oh the irony lol
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 12, 2022
Shortly after Twitter filed the lawsuit, Musk responded with a tweet of his own, saying, “Oh, irony lol.”
The lawsuit alleges that Musk initially struggled to make an unexpected and extraordinarily generous offer regarding the purchase of Twitter. But almost immediately, he began to play with the company and try to back out of the agreement. After market trends reversed and tech stocks began to fall, Twitter claims Musk was looking to exit a deal that offered “significant adverse effects.” The lawsuit alleges that it was at this stage that Musk got the argument that Twitter had a problem with spambots. Although Musk didn’t ask Twitter about spambot estimates before the deal was struck.
“He even sweetened his offer,” the lawsuit says, removing a discretionary clause from the agreement that would have given him access to inside information about the company.
The lawsuit cites many of Musk’s own tweets, including his public call for an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission, a poop emoji he sent in response to Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, and memes Musk posted on Twitter at weekend. The Twitter complaint includes details of discussions between Musk’s team and the platform’s leadership over the past few months.
It is noted that Twitter provided Musk with more data about the bots than he was supposed to receive under the terms of the agreement, including access to the so-called tweet data stream. Musk’s lawyer apparently wanted more, soliciting emails and text messages from executives on the subject. Twitter lawyers called the request “highly unusual.”
Given that the Musk merger agreement has an October 24 deadline, Twitter wants the case to be resolved by that date.
Source: The Verge
- In April 2022, it became known that Elon Musk intends to buy Twitter for $44 billion .
- Later, he tried to reduce the amount of the transaction , citing this decision as an underestimate of the number of spam accounts on the platform.
- The parties were unable to reach an agreement. In June, Musk threatened to pull out of buying Twitter because of a “violation” of the deal, and in July he announced that he was canceling his deal to buy the social network.
