Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s countersuit against Twitter was revealed on Friday, making aggressive new claims about the social media’s method for counting bot and spam accounts.
The Washington Post reports that Elon Musk’s countersuit to Twitter was revealed on Friday and contains aggressive claims about Twitter’s methods for counting bot and spam accounts. Musk has accused Twitter of misleading his team, and Wall Street, about its advertising base.
Musk is attempting to use these claims to justify backing out of the $44 billion buyout deal. Musk is arguing that as he learned more about Twitter’s process to determine the authenticity of accounts, he grew more concerned and decided that the deal was no longer viable.
Musk stated during the recent tesla annual shareholder meeting: “I do understand the product quite well so I think I’ve got a good sense of where to point the engineering team with Twitter to make it radically better. I think it’s something that will be very useful to the world.”
Musk’s countersuit makes it clear that he wants to be free from the deal he agreed to in April to purchase the site. Musk alleges that Twitter engaged in fraud, breach of contract, and violation of the Texas Securities Act. Musk’s attorney is arguing that while Twitter claims to have 238 million monetizable daily active users, the proportion that actually sees ads is 65 million lower.
As RTM previously reported, “Musk challenged Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal to debate Twitter’s claims that less than five percent of the platform’s accounts are spam accounts.”
Musk notified Twitter executives and the Securities and Exchange Commission in a July 8 letter he was terminating the merger agreement. He ended his $44 billion quest to buy the social media platform after complaining the company did not provide data he requested. Musk claimed to find a large amount of “bots,” or fake accounts, on Twitter, which he said was materially different than what the company reported to investors through SEC filings.
The billionaire claimed the company’s refusal to provide the data he asked for, along with the large number of suspected fake accounts, was a material breach of the agreement. Such a breach is one of the few clauses allowing either party to end the merger.
The merger agreement requires Twitter to give Musk all data and information he requests “for any reasonable business purpose related to the consummation of the transaction,” according to a copy of the letter reviewed by Resist the Mainstream.
Read the full story here.
Scroll down to leave a comment and share your thoughts.
