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Topics: Elon Musk, Twitter, Celebrity, Technology, World News, Money
Tom Wood
Topics: Elon Musk, Twitter, Celebrity, Technology, World News, Money
Twitter seems to be trying to make Elon Musk to carry on with his proposed bid to take over at the company, despite the fact that Musk himself has said that he won’t do it.
Musk announced yesterday that he was planning to pull out of the deal, which was worth a reported $44 billion, on the grounds that he had been misled by the powers that be at the social media giant.
Lawyers acting for the Tesla owner said that Twitter ‘appears to have made false and misleading representations upon which Mr Musk relied when entering into the Merger Agreement’, documents submitted to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) state.
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However, the people on Twitter’s side seem to think that the deal is still on and valid, believing that Musk will be compelled to complete it as promised, whether he wants to or not.
Twitter’s chairman Bret Taylor tweeted: “The Twitter Board is committed to closing the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon with Mr. Musk and plans to pursue legal action to enforce the merger agreement,
“We are confident we will prevail in the Delaware Court of Chancery.”
The letter submitted by Musk stated that that he considers the deal to be void because – he alleges – Twitter didn’t provide him with adequate information about the number of fake accounts and bots on the books, as well as Twitter’s measure of daily active users.
That document ended with the statement that Musk’s lawyers would terminate any agreement to buy the company and that the transaction would be abandoned.
Still, it seems as if Twitter plan to fight that.
The merger agreement that both parties have mentioned reportedly includes a $1 billion fee to be paid from Musk to Twitter upon the break-up of the negotiations in the event that the deal did not go through.
However – as we’ve covered – it seems as if Twitter and Bret Taylor are keen to complete the deal regardless.
Of course, the break-up fee is significantly less than the fee should Musk be forced to stump up for the whole company.
In his letter to the SEC, Musk argued that Twitter has ‘not complied with its contractual obligations’ relating to the deal, claiming he was not given enough information to ‘make an independent assessment of the prevalence of fake or spam accounts on Twitter’s platform’.
It remains to be seen whether Musk will be made to complete the deal against his will or not.
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