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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.

The deal was shaken upon on Monday after weeks of speculation about the social media giant’s future following Musk’s emergence as the platform’s largest single shareholder on 4 April. Ten days later, Musk then declared a takeover bid, offering $54.20 per Twitter share. 

Initially, Twitter’s board appeared to be against the takeover and introduced a “poison pill” in a bid to block the sale. However, they warmed to the idea after Musk announced a funding package for the deal, which includes $21 billion of his own wealth as well as debt funding from Morgan Stanley.

In the past, Musk has criticised Twitter, claiming it does not allow free speech. In a tweet that followed confirmation of the deal being accepted, Musk wrote, “Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated [...] I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating spam bots, and authenticating all humans. Twitter has tremendous potential - I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it.”

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