Elon Musk has dismissed Twitter’s threat to take him to court after he dramatically withdrew his $44 billion bid to take control of the social media giant in a series of Tweets.
The Tesla CEO and billionaire announced he would be removing his bid to take control of the social media network over the weekend after he accused the company of withholding vital information and data about bots and spam accounts:
“Mr Musk is terminating the merger agreement because Twitter is in material breach of multiple provisions of that agreement, appears to have made false and misleading representations upon which Mr Musk relied when entering into the merger agreement, and is likely to suffer a Company Material Adverse Effect,” wrote Musk’s lawyers.
But the divorce from the deal might not be that simple, as Musk may have to prove that Twitter breached the conditions of the agreement or face a hefty $1 billion break-up fee.
The 95-page agreement which was filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission includes some complicated rules and proceedings relating to the breakdown of the deal and Twitter bosses are now threatening to take the cheeky SpaceX founder to court.
“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,” said Twitter’s chair of the board, Bret Taylor, suggesting Musk may be faced with a lengthy legal battle in the coming weeks.
But true to form, the confident, laid-back Musk dismissed Twitter’s threats today in a series of Tweets. He posted a meme earlier today which included photographs of himself laughing along with the captions:
“They said I couldn’t buy Twitter, then they wouldn’t disclose bot information, now they want to force me to buy Twitter in court, now they have to disclose bot information in court”.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 11, 2022
The Tweet racked up 710k likes from Musk’s 100.8 million followers on the platform. Musk then posted another slap in the face Tweet of Chuck Norris and a chess board, captioning the image with “Chuckmate” suggesting he had played an intricate game of chess with the social media platform.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 11, 2022
Twitter shares fell at the start of this week by around 5 percent to $34.84 in premarket trading on Friday, prompting some to question Musk’s motives behind his sudden change in direction.
Legal experts say the court case against him could commence as early as next week and that Twitter has a strong case against the world’s richest man.
“We believe that Elon Musk’s intentions to terminate the merger are more based on the recent market sell-off than… Twitter’s ‘failure’ to comply with his requests,” said Jeffries analyst Brent Trill.
“In the absence of a deal, we would not be surprised to see the stock find a floor at $23.5.”
Brian Quinn, an associate professor at Boston College law school said the agreement may also force Musk to buy Twitter for the $54.20 a share he agreed in April or a ‘divorce fee” of around $1 billion:
“They will likely be asking for a declaratory judgment that they are not in violation of the contract. Also, they will ask for an order from the court that Musk specifically perform his obligations under the agreement.
“He can’t use unreasonable information requests to create a pretext to claim a violation.”
This story syndicated with permission from For the Love of News