In a statement to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Musk’s representatives said Twitter had breached the terms of the agreement and “appears to have made false and misleading representations.”
They claimed the social media giant also failed to provide requested data to enable Musk to "make an independent assessment of the prevalence of fake or spam accounts" on the platform.
“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 statement read.
Musk’s withdrawal from the deal saw shares of Twitter drop by 7% in extended trading.
The deal’s terms require Musk to pay a $1 billion fee if he fails to complete the transaction. However, Twitter’s board is planning to take legal action against Musk instead of accepting the $1 billion fee.
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In a filing earlier this month, Twitter estimated that less than 5% of its monetisable daily active users during the first quarter of the year were spam accounts or bots. However, Musk believes that approximately 20% of accounts on the platform are fake or spam accounts. He has also expressed concerns that the figure could be higher still.
“My offer was based on Twitter’s SEC filings being accurate,” Musk tweeted Tuesday morning. “Yesterday, Twitter’s CEO publicly refused to show proof of <5%. This deal cannot move forward until he does.”
After becoming Twitter’s largest single shareholder in early April, Musk declared a takeover bid for the social media platform, offering $54.20 per Twitter share. By the end of the month, Twitter had agreed to the deal.