Elon Musk seeks to scrap $64bn Twitter deal

The Tesla billionaire is calling off the deal to buy Twitter, but the social media company says it’s still committed to closing the deal.

Elon Musk’s decision comes after months of requesting information from Twitter about how the social media company calculates spam and fake accounts.

Elon Musk is calling off a $44 billion ($AUD64bn) deal to buy Twitter Inc., but the social media company says it’s still committed to closing the deal.

Mr. Musk’s attorneys disclosed the billionaire’s plans to scrap the takeover in a Friday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Twitter’s board issued a response late Friday that it intends to close the deal as agreed upon and that it will pursue legal action to enforce the agreement.

“We are confident we will prevail in the Delaware Court of Chancery,” Twitter’s statement said.

Mr. Musk’s decision comes after months of requesting information from Twitter about how the social media company calculates spam and fake accounts. Mr. Musk’s attorney, Mike Ringler of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, said in a letter filed with the SEC that Twitter still hasn’t provided the requested information.

Mr. Ringler also said that Twitter is in material breach of multiple provisions of the merger agreement and that it appears to have made false and misleading representations.

“Sometimes Twitter has ignored Mr. Musk’s requests, sometimes it has rejected them for reasons that appear to be unjustified, and sometimes it has claimed to comply while giving Mr. Musk incomplete or unusable information,” Mr. Ringler said in the letter.

Twitter accepted Mr. Musk’s bid to take over the company and go private in April through a deal worth $44 billion. The planned deal, which would have marked one of the biggest acquisitions of a tech company, valued Twitter at $54.20 a share.

Mr. Musk, CEO of Tesla Inc., said in May that the deal was “on hold” as he sought more information about how Twitter handles fake accounts.

Twitter shares slid 6.3% to $34.72 in after-hours trading after the filing was posted by the SEC.

The Wall Street Journal