Elon Musk announced Friday that his $44 billion bid to buy Twitter was revoked, triggering threats of lawsuits by Twitter’s CEO.
Soon after Musk announced he was backtracking from his offer to buy the social media platform, former President Donald Trump chimed in. Trump created Truth Social, a sort of anti-Twitter, after the platform banned him in January 2021.
“The Twitter deal is dead,” the former president said in a Truth post, “Long live the ‘Truth.'”
Musk’s attorney Mike Ringler wrote Twitter’s chief legal officer, Vijaya Gadde, to give notice Friday he was terminating the merger agreement and abandoning the transaction completely.
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.
Twitter has not complied with its contractual obligations, the SpaceX founder’s lawyer declared. Musk reportedly requested the data for approximately two months. He said the information was needed to “make an independent assessment of the prevalence of fake or spam accounts on Twitter’s platform.”
“This information is fundamental to Twitter’s business and financial performance and is necessary to consummate the transactions contemplated by the Merger Agreement because it is needed to ensure Twitter’s satisfaction of the conditions to closing, to facilitate Mr. Musk’s financing and financial planning for the transaction, and to engage in transition planning for the business,” Ringler explained.
“Twitter has failed or refused to provide this information,” he added. “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.”
“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,” responded Twitter Chairman Bret Taylor in a Twitter post. “We are confident we will prevail in the Delaware Court of Chancery.”
Since the initial offer, the stock market has corrected and Twitter shares (as well as Tesla shares) are trading at markedly lower prices. Some market analysts question whether the billionaire is trying to extract a sweeter deal from Twitter to let him buy the company for significantly less than he originally offered.
Twitter could demand Musk pay the $1 billion breakup fee he agreed to pay under these circumstances when he first made his offer, according to an Associated Press report.
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