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Elon Musk Calls It Quits on $44 Billion Dollar Twitter Deal


Elon Musk tried to cancel his $44 billion bid to buy Twitter, according to a letter filed by his lawyer Friday.

He claimed the company was in “serious violations” for making “false and misleading” statements throughout the process. Musk’s lawyers wrote that Twitter failed to release significant data about spam accounts and bots.

“For nearly two months, Mr. Musk searched for the data and information needed to ‘make an independent assessment of the prevalence of fake or spam accounts on the Twitter platform’, the lawyers for the company said. Musk wrote. “Twitter has failed or declined to provide this information.”

It’s unclear if he was able to withdraw solely due to spam bot claims. The agreement included a provision that any breach of the agreement would require the breaching party to pay a termination fee of $1 billion. Twitter could also sue Musk and try to enforce the deal, though that process would certainly be expensive and could take months or longer.

In response to Musk’s letter, Twitter board chairman Bret Taylor wrote on Twitter that the company will indeed pursue legal action against Musk to ensure the deal goes through at a price and terms. previously agreed terms.

“We are confident we will prevail,” Taylor wrote.

Shares of Twitter fell 5% on Friday and another 6% after a few hours, to $34.60/share. Musk agreed to buy the company for 1.5 times more: $54.20 per share.

That number includes the numbers “420,” a reference to marijuana that Musk has repeatedly included in his online jokes.

But the impending litigation is no laughing matter — and for months, the transaction settlement process has been a distraction and headache for both Twitter’s management and employees.

“This roller coaster ride has taken a toll on me physically. I developed the damn ULCERS because of this,” a current employee told The Daily Beast on Thursday, as it became increasingly clear that Musk was going to step down.

“Honestly I don’t know how to feel, and most of my colleagues don’t seem to either. But nobody’s crazy,” another Twitter employee told The Daily Beast shortly after news of Musk’s move was announced. “It’s just ‘okayyyy so now what.'”

An employee spoke to NBC News “I guess it feels like we’ve won,” said on condition of anonymity. But it feels like the end of the movie, where the characters are bloody and bedridden with a Michael Bay explosion behind them. We can see this coming, but in the meantime he’s destroying the company. “

The ongoing turmoil began at the start of the year, when Musk quietly began accumulating Twitter stock.

He failed to promptly notify investors after he passed a 5% ownership stake in the business in March, according to a follow-up report. litigation. But in April, he finally went public, disclosing a 9.2% stake, before going on to buy more.

Initially, Twitter management tried to play nice with the billionaire, giving him a seat on the board. Musk accepts. Then, at the last moment, he gave up.

The company then adopted a so-called “poison pill,” a corporate strategy used to prevent an unwanted shareholder from gaining control of a business. But Musk shocked the world when he announced that he wanted to buy the platform immediately.

To the surprise of some, Musk seemed to be very serious. He arranged the necessary financing and eventually signed a binding agreement, seemingly without conducting due diligence.

Just a few weeks later, the tech industry was reeling and Twitter’s stock plummeted. Musk appeared to be very calm, lamenting the prevalence of spam and bots on the site and deciding — when — the company needed to prove it wasn’t underestimating the number of fake accounts on its platform. me.

That excuse is now seen as the basis for Musk’s attempt to back out of the deal. The fact that a judge bought it was a different story altogether.



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