Twitter Inc. sued billionaire Elon Musk on Tuesday in a bid to force the Tesla CEO to complete his $44 billion purchase of the social media juggernaut.
Twitter said Musk, after entering a binding merger agreement, now “refuses to honor his obligations to Twitter and its stockholders because the deal he signed no longer serves his personal interests,” CNBC reported.
“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 other party subject to Delaware contract law — is free to change his mind, trash the company, disrupt its operations, destroy stockholder value, and walk away,” Twitter wrote in the complaint, filed in the Delaware Court of Chancery.
“This repudiation follows a long list of material contractual breaches by Musk that have cast a pall over Twitter and its business,” the complaint continued.
Specifically, Twitter is seeking to halt any further attempted breaches of the agreement and compel Musk to consummate the merger “upon satisfaction of the few outstanding conditions,” CNBC reported.
Twitter’s suit comes four days after Musk announced his intentions to exit the 3-month-old deal, citing the social media platform’s refusal to provide data he requested regarding fake accounts.
[ Elon Musk informs Twitter he is terminating proposed $44B acquisition; board digs in ]
According to The New York Times, Musk repeatedly criticized Twitter’s public statements that the fake accounts, or bots, account for roughly 5% of its active users. He has argued that Twitter’s methods have intentionally misled the public and have actively obstructed his attempts to obtain information about how it arrived at the 5% figure, the newspaper reported.