MICROBLOGGING platform, Twitter has formally sued Elon Musk in an attempt to force through his proposed takeover of the social media company, arguing the billionaire had refused to honour his obligations as the deal agreed no longer serves his personal interests.
The social media outfit’s lawsuit comes a few days after Musk pulled the plug on a $44 billion deal to buy the company due to what he claimed were multiple breaches of the agreement.
These included a failure to provide sufficient data related to the number of spam bots operating on Twitter.
In its filing with a US court (the Delaware Court of Chancery), the company argued Musk must honour his agreement to buy Twitter at $0.54 a share, following a “long list of material contractual breaches” which had “cast a pall over Twitter and its business”.
“Having mounted a public spectacle to put Twitter in play, and having proposed and then signed a seller-friendly merger agreement, Musk apparently believes that he, unlike every party subject to Delaware contract law, is free to change his mind, trash the company, disrupt its operations, destroy stockholder value and walk away,” the company stated in the lawsuit.
It further argued Musk had decided to pull out after seeing shares in his electric car company Tesla fall after the deal for Twitter was announced.
Tesla stock has declined by more than $100 billion from a peak in November 2021.
“Rather than bear the cost of the market downturn, as the merger agreement requires, Musk wants to shift it to Twitter’s shareholders,” the company claimed.
After the lawsuit was filed, Musk tweeted @elonmusk, “Oh the irony lol.”
