Elon Musk Claims Twitter Is in Material Breach of Their Deal

The Musk Saga is far from over. Monday, Elon Musk and his legal team filed a letter with the SEC alleging Twitter is in “material breach” of the company’s agreement with the serial entrepreneur after not providing him with the details he and his team have asked for. In May, Musk tweeted that he was placing the deal “temporarily on hold” as he did his due diligence on how many spam and bot accounts actually make up Twitter’s monthly active user base.

According to Monday’s filing, Twitter has “refused” to provide Musk with the requested information.

“Mr. Musk does not agree with the characterizations in Twitter’s June 1 letter. Twitter has, in fact, refused to provide the information that Mr. Musk has repeatedly requested since May 9, 2022 to facilitate his evaluation of spam and fake accounts on the company’s platform,” the filing reads.

It adds, “Twitter’s latest offer to simply provide additional details regarding the company’s own testing methodologies, whether through written materials or verbal explanations, is tantamount to refusing Mr. Musk’s data requests. Twitter’s effort to characterize it otherwise is merely an attempt to obfuscate and confuse the issue. Mr. Musk has made it clear that he does not believe the company’s lax testing methodologies are adequate so he must conduct his own analysis. The data he has requested is necessary to do so.”

Twitter had previously suggest bot and spam accounts made up less than five-percent of the platform’s users. Musk followed that up by suggesting those numbers could be upwards of 20-percent, though he didn’t provide evidence of where he obtained such numbers.

In a statement obtained by Variety, a Twitter spokesperson said the company has been cooperating with Musk and his team throughout the entirety of the deal.

“Twitter has and will continue to cooperatively share information with Mr. Musk to consummate the transaction in accordance with the terms of the merger agreement. We believe this agreement is in the best interest of all shareholders. We intend to close the transaction and enforce the merger agreement at the agreed price and terms.”

In April, Musk agreed to buy Twitter for $54.20 per share, for a total valuation of around $44 billion. Since then, Twitter stock has plummeted around 23-percent, and now trades at $39.56 a share as of Monday afternoon.