Elon Musk No Longer Buying Twitter, Risk $1 billion Fine

The Chairman of Twitter board, Bret Taylor, has threatened to sue Elon Musk, after the Chief Executive Officer of automaker, Tesla, pulled out of the acquisition deal to buy out the social media.

Musk’s lawyer, Mike Ringler, had written to Twitter board on Friday, stating breach of agreement relating to the acquisition deal. He said the company failed to provide some information requested by the billionaire.

In the statement, Ringler claimed that sometimes, the board ignores Musk’s request. The termination is as a result of disagreement over the number of bot accounts on Twitter’s platform.

The social media company had stated that it has below 5% spam accounts of its 229 million monetizable daily active users (mDAU). Musk said this information was vital to his reason to acquire Twitter.

Recall that Musk had previously bought 9.2% stake in Twitter in April, before offering to acquire the company 100% at the cost of $44 billion. However, in the last three months to finalise the agreement, he learnt that the bot accounts might be more than that, with report stating its reportedly around 20%.

Musk demanded to see Twitter’s user data to make his own calculations, stating he doubt the methodology used by the management to conclude on 5%. He threatened to pull out if the figure is more than previously claimed by the board, and Twitter maintained its position on the 5%.

However, Musk’s lawyer said Twitter board haven’t been forthcoming on request made by Tesla majority investor, stating that some of his demands regarding information have been ignored.

Although Twitter handed its user data to Musk, but that didn’t stop the billionaire from terminating the deal, accusing the company’s board of contract breach.

“Twitter has not complied with its contractual obligations.” Ringler wrote to Twitter board, “Twitter has failed or refused to provide this information,” he expressed in the statement.

“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.” Ringler claimed in the letter.

Meanwhile, the board chairman, Taylor, said the company will file a legal action against Musk, to compel him to adhere to the acquisition agreements.

Taylor wrote on Twitter, “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.”

Musk is likely to pay $1 billion to Twitter for terminating the deal, following a break fee that stipulates withdrawal from the deal will cost the said amount.