San Francisco – Elon Musk’s tumultuous Twitter takeover has reached chaos: the tech billionaire is backing out of the deal, but the company wants to push the deal through in court. Musk’s lawyers justify the withdrawal with allegedly insufficient information on the number of fake accounts on the short message service. But Twitter is convinced that it would prevail in a legal dispute.
Musk’s turnaround does not come as a surprise: Musk had publicly questioned the Twitter numbers for weeks and therefore declared the takeover to be suspended. This was interpreted by observers as an attempt to at least lower the price. At his bid, the deal would be worth more than $44 billion (around €43 billion), while Twitter was last worth around $28 billion on the stock market.
Musk’s lawyers have now said that Twitter failed to provide Musk and his advisory staff with the necessary data access to verify the information on fake accounts. Among other things, calls via interfaces have been limited. Musk’s side describes this as a breach of contractual obligations, which justifies a termination of the purchase agreement.
Twitter has estimated for some time that the number of fake accounts is less than five percent. Musk doubted that – even after he signed the acquisition agreement in May.
But Twitter won’t let Musk out of the deal. Board Chairman Bret Taylor said the company is committed to completing the sale at the price agreed with it and plans to take it to court. Musk and Twitter have agreed to a $1 billion penalty if either party fails to go through with the deal. However, it is more about problems such as failed financing by banks.
Musk should have used part of his fortune for the Twitter deal. In order to make money liquid, he parted with part of the share certificates. He also wanted to take out loans and get other lenders on board. dpa
–
