Elon Musk has dropped his plans for a $44 billion acquisition of Twitter. Reuters reports that Musk has told Twitter that he is pulling out of the deal because of “material breach of multiple provisions of the agreement.”
In April, Musk offered to buy Twitter for $54.20 per share, and Twitter agreed to the offer in late April. Since then, the deal has been on hold due to an issue over spam or fake accounts. Twitter had claimed that fake or spam accounts represent less than five percent of users. Musk believed the percentage was much higher. Musk said at the time that he was “still committed to the acquisition,” but he also said that he wanted to look into Twitter’s spam account data.
Musk said that that the social media company had failed to provide information about fake accounts on the platform and had not complied with its contractual obligations.
In a filing, Musk’s lawyers said Twitter had failed or refused to respond to multiple requests for information on fake or spam accounts on the platform, which is fundamental to the company’s business performance.
“Twitter is in material breach of multiple provisions of that Agreement, appears to have made false and misleading representations upon which Mr. Musk relied when entering into the Merger Agreement,” the filing said.