Twitter shoots back at Elon Musk over termination of $44B deal

Twitter shares fell 11 percent to USD32.65 at Monday’s market close. (File photo: Brett Jordan/Unsplash)

HOUSTON, Texas – Twitter shot back Monday at Tesla CEO Elon Musk over his announcement late last week that he was terminating his USD44 billion deal to buy the microblogging and social networking giant.

“As it has done, Twitter will continue to provide information reasonably requested by Mr. Musk under the Agreement and to diligently take all measures required to close the transaction,” said Twitter attorney William Savitt in a letter to Musk’s legal team.

Twitter’s letter comes in the wake of Musk backing out of the deal late last Friday with multiple reasons, including that Twitter allegedly undercounts the number of spam accounts on its service.

“Twitter has breached none of its obligations under the Agreement, and Twitter has not suffered and is not likely to suffer a company material adverse effect,” Savitt added, reiterating that Musk’s move to end the deal was “invalid and wrongful.”

“Twitter reserves all contractual, legal, and other rights, including its right to specifically enforce the Musk Parties’ obligations under the Agreement,” the letter continued.

Musk agreed to buy Twitter for USD54.20 per share in an unsolicited deal struck in late April.

The billionaire alleged in his Friday termination letter that Twitter misrepresented user data, claiming the number of spam bots on the social media platform is much higher than the company has disclosed.

Twitter dismissed that claim, stating that the number of bots was well under 5 percent of its total daily active users.

Twitter chairman Bret Taylor tweeted Friday that the company “plans to pursue legal action to enforce the merger agreement.”

No lawsuit has yet been filed by either side.

Twitter shares fell 11 percent to USD32.65 at Monday’s market close.