Elon Musk is not short of excuses to tear up his deal with Twitter. The richest man in the world threatened to walk away from the deal once again yesterday.
This time, Musk said the deal could be over if Twitter fails to provide the data on spam and fake accounts. Musk has suggested publicly multiple times that his acquisition of Twitter may not happen.
This warning, however, was delivered in a letter from Musk’s lawyers to the chief legal officer for Twitter, Vijaya Gadde. It marks an escalation in the threats to abandon the deal. Musk’s letter accused Twitter of being in “material breach” of its deal obligations.
His threats to tear the deal up have coincided with a plunge in many technology stocks, including his own electric car maker, Tesla. It comes amid concerns of an economic slowdown and higher interest rates in the face of inflation.
Twitter shares ended on Monday at $39.57, which is a large discount to his agreed-upon $52.20 per share in the deal price. Investors bet Musk will either convince Twitter to lower the deal price, or he will walk away.
Twitter stands by that it will enforce the completion of the deal on the agreed terms, stating that the company has and will continue to cooperatively share information with Musk to consummate the transaction.
Musk’s lawyers reiterated a request for details on spam and bot accounts. It claimed he has all rights to terminate the deal because the company was in a “clear material breach” by not providing him with this information.
In mid-May, Musk tweeted that the deal was “temporarily on hold,” saying he will not move forward with the offer until the company showed proof that spam bots account for less than five percent of the platform’s total users.
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