Elon Musk announced that he was canceling his acquisition of Twitter after the ups and downs of a process that has affected the value of the company’s stock. This news was stated through the filing of the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) last Friday (8/7).
Musk first revealed his intention to buy Twitter earlier this year. Then in April, he struck a deal to buy the social media website for $44 billion.
But for nearly a month, Musk hardly ever mentions a deal in his tweets. This has happened since Musk announced that he was holding back the acquisition process because the data Twitter provided regarding the number of spam bot accounts was deemed non-transparent.
Now, that’s all figured out, through the SEC filing, Musk backed out of the deal. Musk’s legal team stated, “For nearly two months, Mr. Musk has been searching for the data and information necessary to make an independent assessment of the prevalence of fake or spam accounts on the Twitter platform.”
“Twitter has failed or refused to provide this information. Sometimes Twitter ignores Mr. Musk, sometimes denied it for seemingly unjustifiable reasons, and sometimes claimed to comply with it while providing incomplete or unusable information to Mr. Musk. Musk.”
While Musk is trying to back down from the acquisition, Twitter is trying to keep the deal going. Twitter chairman Bret Taylor commented on the SEC filing shortly after it emerged.
“Twitter’s board is committed to closing the transaction at the price and terms agreed with Mr Musk and plans to take legal action to enforce the acquisition agreement. We believe we will win on the Delaware Court of Chancery.”
However, despite Musk’s intention to halt the acquisition, the deal is already in the works. Musk and his team had to prove that Twitter did not provide valid information during negotiations. If he fails to provide that evidence, then the Tesla CEO will need to be responsible for cancellation fees of $1 billion.
