Elon Musk threatens to walk away from Twitter takeover bid

World Tuesday 07/June/2022 08:49 AM
By: DW
Elon Musk threatens to walk away from Twitter takeover bid
It's the first time that Elon Musk has threatened in legal filings to withdraw from his Twitter takeover bid — rather than doing so in posts on Twitter

Billionaire Elon Musk threatened to pull out of his multi-billion dollar bid to purchase social media giant Twitter, according to a letter sent by his lawyers on Monday.

Twitter and Musk have gone back and forth for several weeks ever since the Tesla and SpaceX CEO announced his intention to purchase the social media giant in April.
What did the letter say?

In the letter, which was filed by Musk's lawyers to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the billionaire said he had repeatedly asked Twitter to send data on fake accounts and spam bots on the site.

According to Musk's legal team, Twitter has so far offered to provide details about the company's testing methods on how they calculate their fake account estimates. Musk's lawyers, however, said that the offer is "tantamount to refusing Mr. Musk's data requests."

His legal team further described the lack of data as "a clear material breach" under the merger agreement between Twitter and Musk.

They added that the billionaire reserves his rights "not to consummate the transaction" as well as "his right to terminate the merger agreement."

Twitter did not immediately comment on the letter, however it previously released what it called details of Musk's takeover bid that appeared to show Musk taking no interest in this issue before launching his bid.  According to the account of Twitter's proxy statement for investors, Musk did not "seek from Twitter any non-public info regarding Twitter."

It is the first time that Musk has officially threatened to withdraw his bid to buy the company, Musk did not  instead of airing his grievances on his Twitter account.