SAN FRANCISCO (NewsNation) — Elon Musk said on Friday he is terminating his $44 billion deal for Twitter, citing material breach of multiple provisions of the agreement.
The chair of Twitter’s board, Bret Taylor, tweeted Friday that the board is “committed to closing the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon with Mr. Musk and plans to pursue legal action to enforce the merger agreement. We are confident we will prevail in the Delaware Court of Chancery.”
Twitter could have pushed for a $1 billion breakup fee Musk agreed to pay under these circumstances. Instead, it looks ready to fight over the deal, which the company’s board has approved and CEO Parag Agrawal has insisted he wants to consummate.
The Tesla CEO had previously threatened to walk away from the deal if the company couldn’t show that less than 5% of its daily active users are automated spam accounts.
“Twitter has not provided information that Mr. Musk has requested for nearly two months notwithstanding his repeated, detailed clarifications intended to simplify Twitter’s identification, collection, and disclosure of the most relevant information sought in Mr. Musk’s original requests,” according to Musk’s attorneys.
Twitter removes 1 million spam accounts each day. the company said in a call with executives Thursday during a briefing that aimed to shed more light on the company’s fake and bot accounts as it tussled with Musk over “spam bots.”
Musk has argued that Twitter has significantly underestimated the number of these “spam bots” — automated accounts that typically promote scams and misinformation — on its service.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
