Elon Musk has abandoned his bid to buy Twitter for $44 billion. That’s what the lawyers of the Tesla founder have let them know† Musk had already announced at an earlier stage that he might want to abandon the acquisition due to a lack of clarity about the number of spam accounts on the social media platform.
The Twitter board says that less than five percent of Twitter users are bots. Musk claims there are more and says that Twitter has not provided sufficient clarity about the real number of fake accounts. Musk has spent nearly two months searching for the data and information needed to make an independent assessment of the prevalence of fake or spam accounts on Twitter’s platform, Musk’s attorneys wrote. “Twitter has failed or refused to provide this information.”
According to the lawyers, the board of Twitter has thereby broken provisions of the acquisition agreement. Musk’s withdrawal could potentially lead to a lawsuit. The original agreement stated that a $1 billion penalty would be payable if Musk withdraws early. Bret Taylor, the chairman of Twitter’s supervisory board, writes in a comment that the acquisition will go ahead “at the price and terms agreed with Mr. Musk.” He threatens legal action if Musk decides to abandon the purchase.
In April of this year, Musk, currently the richest man in the world, announced that he wanted to buy Twitter for $44 billion. Since then, Musk has regularly hinted at his doubts about the deal, something seen by some pundits as a tactic to pay less for the social media company. In June, Musk gave Twitter employees an insight into his plans. He said he wanted to grow the platform to one billion users.