Elon MuskDevelopments that will take Twitter’s bid to buy Twitter into a much worse scenario continue. The Tesla CEO detailed his reservations about the purchase in a letter he shared on Monday. Musk further detailed his objections to the way Twitter handles fake accounts and raised the issue in his SEC filing.
Musk believes Twitter has transparently refused to comply with its obligations under the merger agreement, citing data in the accounts. Musk, who claimed that he refused to provide information to evaluate spam and fake accounts on Twitter. Through his legal team, he noted:
“twitter‘s latest proposal to provide additional details on the company’s own testing methodologies (regarding bot accounts) through written materials or verbal disclosures is tantamount to refusing Musk’s requests for data. Twitter’s attempt to define it otherwise is merely a preferred attempt to obfuscate and confuse the issue.”
The spam account issue on Twitter and Musk’s suspicions about their formation first came to the fore last month. Elon Musk announced on May 13 that the Twitter deal was temporarily suspended due to the details supporting the calculation of the account composition. This meant that the deal was pending details on whether spam and fake accounts represented less than 5% of users.
The last letter also underlined that Twitter must provide the data in accordance with the terms of the agreement.
“As a prospective owner of Twitter, Musk is absolutely entitled to the data he requests. This is to ensure that Twitter is prepared to take over its business. Also, a requested data to facilitate transaction financing. To do both, Twitter needs to fully and accurately understand the essence of its business model, namely its active user base.”
Musk’s team underlines that Twitter’s refusal to provide data raises further suspicion. The company states that Musk is keeping the requested data out of fear that his own analysis of this data will reveal it.
In the letter, Musk said he believes Twitter is actively resisting and blocking information rights under the merger agreement. “This is a clear material breach of Twitter’s obligations under the merger agreement,” it shared.