Billionaire Elon Musk threatened to walk away from his deal with Twitter.
An attorney representing Musk wrote a letter on Monday to Twitter’s head of legal, policy and trust, Vijaya Gadde, accusing the company of “actively resisting and thwarting his information rights.”
The letter explained, “This is a clear material breach of Twitter’s obligations under the merger agreement and Mr. Musk reserves all rights resulting therefrom, including his right not to consummate the transaction and his right to terminate the merger agreement.”
According to the letter, Twitter has “refused to provide the information that Mr. Musk has repeatedly requested since May 9, 2022 to facilitate his evaluation of spam and fake accounts on the company’s platform.”
The letter argued, that as the company’s prospective owner, Musk is “clearly entitled to the requested data to enable him to prepare for transitioning Twitter’s business to his ownership and to facilitate his transaction financing.”
It continues, “In any event, Mr. Musk is not required to explain his rationale for requesting the data, nor submit to the new conditions the company has attempted to impose on his contractual right to the requested data. At this point, Mr. Musk believes Twitter is transparently refusing to comply with its obligations under the merger agreement, which is causing further suspicion that the company is withholding the requested data due to concern for what Mr. Musk’s own analysis of that data will uncover.”
Elon is using Skadden Arps (same firm that represented Alfa Bank and uncovered various Russiagate frauds).
— Hans Mahncke (@HansMahncke) June 6, 2022
Link:https://t.co/oICxmRoa2c
The letter comes less than a month after Musk suggested the deal could not move forward until the dispute over bot accounts is resolved.
“20% fake/spam accounts, while 4 times what Twitter claims, could be much higher. My offer was based on Twitter’s SEC filings being accurate,” Musk tweeted.
He added, “Yesterday, Twitter’s CEO publicly refused to show proof of <5%. This deal cannot move forward until he does.”
20% fake/spam accounts, while 4 times what Twitter claims, could be *much* higher.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 17, 2022
My offer was based on Twitter’s SEC filings being accurate.
Yesterday, Twitter’s CEO publicly refused to show proof of <5%.
This deal cannot move forward until he does.
In April, Musk vowed to defeat spam bots.
“If our twitter bid succeeds, we will defeat the spam bots or die trying!” Musk tweeted.
He continued, “And authenticate all real humans.”
And authenticate all real humans
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 21, 2022
The Tesla CEO previously said his “strong, intuitive sense is that having a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important to the future of civilization.”
Musk stressed he does not “care about the economics at all.”