Elon Musk has threatened to back out of his plan to buy Twitter, claiming that the social media giant is’resisting and blocking’ his access to information on spam and bogus accounts.
He claimed Twitter had broken its duties in a “clear significant violation,” and that he “reserves all rights” to terminate the merger deal.
Musk had previously stated that he would put the transaction ‘temporarily on hold’ while waiting for the company to give data on the percentage of fraudulent accounts it had.
Last month, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk stated that he ‘cannot move forward’ with his $44 billion platform purchase unless he receives the needed data.
Musk claims that spam bots account for at least half of Twitter’s users, which is more than ten times the company’s official estimate.
Musk’s counsel contended in a letter to Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s Chief Legal Officer, dated Monday that the conditions of the billionaire’s acquisition deal require the platform to release the sought data, which he allegedly requested multiple times since May 9.
He also refuted the company’s contention that it is only compelled to furnish information for the ‘narrow purpose’ of concluding the transaction.
‘Musk has the right to request, and Twitter has the obligation to give, information and data for, among other things, ‘any reasonable business purpose relating to the closing of the deal,” according to the letter.
‘Musk believes Twitter is transparently refusing to comply with its obligations under the merger agreement, which is causing further suspicion that the company is withholding the requested data due to concern for what Musk’s own analysis of that data will uncover.’
For years, Twitter has published its bot estimates to the Securities and Exchange Commission in the United States, while also warning that the estimate could be too low.
According to Twitter, Musk indicated last month that he intended to put the purchase proposal on hold while he verified that fraudulent or spam accounts accounted for less than 5% of the company’s 229 million users in the first quarter.
If Twitter’s reporting is correct, there are fewer than 11.4 million phony accounts that are targeted for advertising.
The billionaire stated that he and his staff intended to conduct their own audit of 100 Twitter followers to determine how many of them are bots or spam accounts.
Share on Facebook «||» Share on Twitter «||» Share on Reddit «||» Share on LinkedIn