In a statement to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Musk’s representatives said Twitter violated the terms of an agreement and “appears to have made false and misleading statements.” They said Twitter also failed to provide data and information Musk requested to allow it to “make an independent assessment of the prevalence of fake or spammy accounts” on the social media platform. “At times Twitter has ignored Mr. Musk’s requests, at times denied them for reasons that appear unjustified, and at times has claimed compliance while providing Mr. Musk with incomplete or unused information,” the statement continued. As a result of Mr. Musk’s decision, Twitter shares fell 7% in extended trading, well below the $54.20 he had offered to pay for the company in April. The terms of the deal require Musk to pay a $1bn (£830m) break-up fee if he does not complete the transaction. However, it appears that Twitter’s board of directors does not plan to accept the payment and will instead take legal action. Twitter President Bret Taylor tweeted that the company is “committed to closing the transaction at the price and terms agreed upon with Mr. Musk and plans to take legal action to enforce the merger agreement.” “We are confident that we will prevail in the Delaware Court of First Instance,” he added. The potential collapse of the deal is just the latest twist in a saga between the world’s richest man and one of the most influential social networking sites. Much of the drama has played out on Twitter, with Musk – who has more than 95 million followers – lamenting that the company has failed to live up to its potential as a platform for free speech. Tesla’s CEO had previously threatened to end the deal unless the company proved that spam and bot accounts accounted for less than 5% of users seeing ads on its service. Last month, Twitter gave Musk access to its “firehose,” which is the storage location for raw data on hundreds of millions of daily tweets.
