Twitter’s legal team calls Elon Musk’s attempt to exit acquisition deal ‘invalid and wrongful’

New York
CNN Enterprise
 — 

Elon Musk wants to cancel his deal to purchase Twitter, but the social media business is owning none of it.

On Friday, Musk moved to terminate the $44-billion acquisition settlement, alleging that Twitter breached the offer by failing to hand about facts he suggests he needs to assess the amount of bots and spam accounts on the platform. Twitter’s lawful associates strike again in a letter to Musk’s lawyers Sunday, calling the billionaire’s promises “invalid” and demanding that Musk abide by as a result of with the takeover.

“Mr. Musk’s and the other Musk Parties’ purported termination is invalid and wrongful, and it constitutes a repudiation of their obligations beneath the Settlement,” reads the letter, which was signed William Savit, a attorney at Wachtell, Rosen, Lipton and Katz, which is representing Twitter in the dispute. The letter was disclosed in a regulatory filing Monday.

Musk has for weeks expressed fears, without having any evident evidence, that there are a better range of bots and spam accounts on the platform than Twitter has reported publicly. In his Friday letter, his attorney alleged that Twitter has “not complied with its contractual obligations” to present Musk with ample facts to examine the challenge, irrespective of getting handed around its “firehose” of tweets on the system.

In its Monday response, the Twitter staff mentioned that, “Twitter has breached none of its obligations,” and alleged instead that Musk has “knowingly, deliberately, willfully, and materially breached the Arrangement.” It included that Twitter has and will proceed to “provide details reasonably requested” by Musk to shut the transaction.

“The Settlement is not terminated, the Financial institution Debt Commitment Letter and the Fairness Determination Letter keep on being in influence, and Twitter needs that Mr. Musk and the other Musk Parties comply with their obligations less than the Arrangement,” the letter states.

Unless Musk backs down or a settlement is arrived at, the dispute seems pretty much sure to close up in court docket. Next Musk’s announcement that he wanted to exit the deal, Twitter board chair Bret Taylor explained in a tweet Friday that the board is “committed to closing the transaction on the selling price and phrases agreed upon with Mr. Musk and strategies to pursue authorized action to implement the merger settlement.”

“We are self-assured we will prevail in the Delaware Court docket of Chancery,” Taylor included. It does not surface that a official fit has nevertheless been submitted.

Meanwhile, Twitter

(TWTR) inventory tanked on the news of the dispute, closing down more than 11% on Monday — virtually 40% beneath Musk’s offer value, suggesting deep skepticism about the offer heading via. Lots of analysts have instructed that Musk may well be attempting to use the bot difficulty as a pretext to get out of a offer that seems overpriced in light-weight of the modern current market downturn. Tesla

(TSLA) shares, which Musk is arranging to use in portion to finance the offer, have also fallen in current months.