Elon Musk has withdrawn from a deal to take over Twitter for $ 44 billion (£ 36.5 billion).
In a statement delivered to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Musk’s representatives said Twitter breached the terms of an agreement and “appears to have made false and misleading statements.”
They said Twitter had also not provided the data and information requested by Mr. Musk to allow him to “make an independent assessment of the prevalence of fake or spam accounts” on the social media platform.
“Sometimes Twitter has ignored Mr. Musk’s requests, sometimes rejected them for seemingly unjustified reasons, and sometimes claimed to comply with them while giving Mr. Musk incomplete or unusable information,” the statement continued. .
As a result of the decision of Mr. Musk, Twitter shares fell 7% in extended trading, well below the $ 54.20 he had offered to pay for the company in April.
The terms of the agreement require that Mr. Musk will pay a $ 1 billion breakdown fee (£ 830 million) if he does not complete the transaction.
However, it appears that the Twitter board has no plans to accept the payment and instead take legal action.
Twitter chairman Bret Taylor tweeted that the company is “committed to closing the transaction according to the price and terms agreed with Musk and plans to take legal action to enforce the merger agreement.”
“We are confident that we will prevail in the Delaware Chancellery Court,” he added.
The possible outcome of the deal is just the latest twist in a saga between the richest man in the world and one of the most influential social networks.
Much of the drama has unfolded on Twitter, with Mr. Musk, who has more than 95 million followers, lamented that the company did not live up to its potential as a platform for free speech.
The CEO of Tesla had previously threatened to stop the deal unless the company showed that spam and bot accounts were less than 5% of users who see advertising on its service.
Last month, Twitter gave Mr. Musk in his “fire sleeve,” which is his raw data storage location on hundreds of millions of tweets daily.
Musk’s flirtation with the purchase of Twitter appeared to begin in late March when Twitter said it contacted members of its board, including co-founder Jack Dorsey, and told them it was buying shares of the company. and that he was interested in joining the board, taking to Twitter. private or start a competitor.
He later revealed, in a regulatory filing, that he had become the company’s largest shareholder after acquiring a 9% stake worth about $ 3 billion.
At first, Twitter offered Mr. Musk a seat on his board.
But six days later, the chief executive of Twitter tweeted that Musk will not join the board after all and that his offer to buy the company came together quickly after that.
Within Twitter, Musk’s bid was met with confusion and a drop in morale, especially after he publicly criticized one of Twitter’s top lawyers involved in content moderation decisions.
After forming the deal, the company instituted a freeze on hiring, stopped discretionary spending, and fired two senior executives.