Billionaire Elon Musk threatened to walk away from his deal with Twitter.
An attorney representing Musk wrote a letter on Monday to Twitterâs head of legal, policy and trust, Vijaya Gadde, accusing the company of âactively resisting and thwarting his information rights.â
The letter explained, âThis is a clear material breach of Twitterâs obligations under the merger agreement and Mr. Musk reserves all rights resulting therefrom, including his right not to consummate the transaction and his right to terminate the merger agreement.â
According to the letter, Twitter has ârefused to provide the information that Mr. Musk has repeatedly requested since May 9, 2022 to facilitate his evaluation of spam and fake accounts on the companyâs platform.â
The letter argued, that as the companyâs prospective owner, Musk is âclearly entitled to the requested data to enable him to prepare for transitioning Twitterâs business to his ownership and to facilitate his transaction financing.â
It continues, âIn any event, Mr. Musk is not required to explain his rationale for requesting the data, nor submit to the new conditions the company has attempted to impose on his contractual right to the requested data. At this point, Mr. 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 Mr. Muskâs own analysis of that data will uncover.â
The letter comes less than a month after Musk suggested the deal could not move forward until the dispute over bot accounts is resolved.
â20% fake/spam accounts, while 4 times what Twitter claims, could be much higher. My offer was based on Twitterâs SEC filings being accurate,â Musk tweeted.
He added, âYesterday, Twitterâs CEO publicly refused to show proof of <5%. This deal cannot move forward until he does.â
In April, Musk vowed to defeat spam bots.
âIf our Twitter bid succeeds, we will defeat the spam bots or die trying!â Musk tweeted.
He continued, âAnd authenticate all real humans.â
The Tesla CEO previously said his âstrong, intuitive sense is that having a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important to the future of civilization.â
Musk stressed he does not âcare about the economics at all.â
