Elon Musk announced Friday that he will abandon his tumultuous $44
billion offer to buy Twitter after the company failed to provide enough
information about the number of fake accounts. Twitter immediately fired
back, saying it would sue the Tesla CEO to uphold the deal.
The likely unraveling of the acquisition was just the latest twist in a saga
between the world’s richest man and one of the most influential social
media platforms, and it may portend a titanic legal battle ahead.
Twitter could have pushed for a $1 billion breakup fee that Musk agreed to
pay under these circumstances. Instead, it looks ready to fight to complete
the purchase, which the company’s board has approved and CEO Parag
Agrawal has insisted he wants to consummate.
In a letter to Twitter’s board, Musk lawyer Mike Ringler complained that
his client had for nearly two months sought data to judge the prevalence of
“fake or spam” accounts on the social media platform.
“Twitter has failed or refused to provide this information. 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,” the
letter said.
Musk also said the information is fundamental to Twitter’s business and
financial performance, and is needed to finish the merger.
In response, the chair of Twitter’s board, Bret Taylor, tweeted that the
board is “committed to closing the transaction on the price and terms
agreed upon” with Musk and “plans to pursue legal action to enforce the
merger agreement. We are confident we will prevail in the Delaware Court
of Chancery.”
The trial court in Delaware frequently handles business disputes among
the many corporations, including Twitter, that are incorporated there.
Former President Donald Trump weighed in on his own social platform,
Truth Social: “THE TWITTER DEAL IS DEAD, LONG LIVE THE
‘TRUTH’”. Musk said in May that he would allow Trump, who was banned
from Twitter following the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, back onto
the platform.
Much of the drama surrounding the deal has played out on Twitter, with
Musk — who has more than 100 million followers — lamenting that the
company was failing to live up to its potential as a platform for free speech.
On Friday, shares of Twitter fell 5% to $36.81, well below the $54.20 that
Musk agreed to pay. Shares of Tesla, meanwhile, climbed 2.5% to $752.29.
After the market closed and Musk’s letter was published, Twitter’s stock
continued to decline while Tesla climbed higher.
“This is a disaster scenario for Twitter and its board,” Wedbush analyst
Dan Ives wrote in a note to investors. He predicted a long court fight by
Twitter to either restore the deal or get the $1 billion breakup fee.
On Thursday, Twitter sought to shed more light on how it counts spam
accounts in a briefing with journalists and company executives. Twitter
said it removes 1 million spam accounts each day. The accounts represent
well below 5% of its active user base each quarter.
To calculate how many accounts are malicious spam, Twitter said it
reviews “thousands of accounts” sampled at random, using both public and
private data such as IP addresses, phone numbers, location and account
behavior when active, to determine whether an account is real.
Last month, Twitter offered Musk access to its “fire hose” of raw data on
hundreds of millions of daily tweets, according to multiple reports at the
time, though neither the company nor Musk confirmed that.
One of the chief reasons Musk gave for his interest in taking Twitter
private was his belief he could add value to the business by getting rid of
its spam bots — the same problem that he’s now citing as a reason to end
the deal.
“This whole process has been bizarre,” said Christopher Bouzy, founder of
research firm Bot Sentinel, which tracks fake Twitter accounts used for
disinformation or harassment. “He knew about this problem. It’s odd that
he would use bots and trolls and inauthentic accounts as a way of getting
out of the deal.”
On the other hand, Bouzy said, the letter from Musk’s legal team makes
some valid critiques of Twitter’s lack of transparency, including its
apparent refusal to provide Musk with the same level of internal data it
offers some of its big customers.
“It just seems as if they’re hiding something,” said Bouzy, who also
believes the number of fake or spam Twitter accounts is higher than what
the company has reported.
Musk’s lawyer also alleged that Twitter broke the agreement when it fired
two top managers and laid off a third of its talent-acquisition team.
The sale agreement, he wrote, required Twitter to “seek and obtain
consent” if it deviated from conducting normal business. Twitter was
required to “preserve substantially intact the material components of its
current business organization,” the letter said.
Musk’s flirtation with buying Twitter appeared to begin in late March.
That’s when Twitter said he contacted members of its board — including
co-founder Jack Dorsey — and told them he was buying up shares of the
company and was interested in either joining the board, taking Twitter
private or starting a competitor.
Then, on April 4, he revealed in a regulatory filing that he had became the
company’s largest shareholder after acquiring a 9% stake worth about $3
billion.
At first, Twitter offered Musk a seat on its board. But six days later,
Agrawal tweeted that Musk would not be joining the board after all. His
bid to buy the company came together quickly after that.
When Musk agreed to buy Twitter for $54.20 per share, he inserted a “420”
marijuana reference into his price. He sold roughly $8.5 billion worth of
shares in Tesla to help fund the purchase, then strengthened his
commitments of more than $7 billion from a diverse group of investors
including Silicon Valley heavy hitters like Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison.
Inside Twitter, Musk’s offer was met with confusion and falling morale,
especially after Musk publicly criticized one of Twitter’s top lawyers
involved in content-moderation decisions.
Groups opposing the takeover from the outset — including those
advocating for women, minorities and LGBTQ people — cheered Friday’s
news.
“Despite what Musk may claim, this deal isn’t ending because of Twitter
bots or spam accounts. This deal is collapsing because of Elon Musk’s own
erratic behavior, embrace of extremists and bad business decisions,” said
Angelo Carusone, president of Media Matters, a left-leaning nonprofit
watchdog group that’s been critical of Musk’s Twitter bid.
Musk, he said, “made it clear that he would roll back Twitters’ community
standards and safety guidelines, which would turn the platform into a
fever swamp of dangerous conspiracy theories, partisan chicanery and
white supremacist radicalization.”