Washington, Europe Brief News – Elon Musk is threatening to pull his $44 billion Twitter buyout offer, accusing the company of hiding information about the number of bot and spam accounts on the platform.
In a letter filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission Monday, lawyers for Elon Musk said that Twitter has refused to hand over its user data so that Musk can vet the company’s user base.
Twitter has long reported that about 5% of its users are bots. However, after the company and Musk reached a buyout agreement in April, the Tesla CEO has repeatedly called the bot number into question and demanded data to do his own verification.
The letter formalises a dispute that has simmered for weeks after Musk declared the deal “on hold” pending further information.
Twitter has defended its estimates.
But Mr Musk has said he believes spam and fake accounts represent a far greater share than the less than 5% of daily users that Twitter reports publicly.
“As Twitter’s prospective owner, Mr 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. To do both, he must have a complete and accurate understanding of the very core of Twitter’s business model – its active user base,” lawyer Mike Ringler wrote in the letter.
“Based on Twitter’s behaviour to date, and the company’s latest correspondence in particular, Mr Musk believes the company is actively resisting and thwarting his information rights,” the letter said.
“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.”
The dispute has raised more doubts about the future of the takeover, which Twitter’s board approved in April.
