Twitter plans to sue after Musk pulls plug on $44m takeover
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Twitter plans to sue after Musk pulls plug on $44m takeover

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Twitter plans to sue Elon Musk after he pulled out of a deal to buy Twitter for US44 billion on Friday.

The plans were confirmed by Bret Taylor, Twitter’s chairman who said that the company is “committed to closing the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon with Mr Musk”.

He added the company “plans to pursue legal action to enforce the merger agreement”.

Musk posted a meme on Twitter alleging that the social media firm would not disclose information surrounding ‘bots’ and subsequently making light of the fact that Twitter would now have to do this in court.

Twitter has repeatedly stated that it has bots under control and intends to force a merger agreement through the Delaware Court of Chancery.

Musk initially agreed to take Twitter private at a price of US$54.20 per share in April. Twitter shares fell around 7% and were trading at US$36.81 on Friday following the news that Musk would withdraw his offer.

He has repeatedly expressed concerns about bots on the social media platform, believing the number of bots to account for 20% of active daily users.

Twitter, though, has asserted that it only represents around 5% of its daily active users.

In May, Musk said that the deal was “on hold” as he awaited further data on the number of fake and spam accounts.

The initial agreement stated that Twitter must provide the billionaire with all data and information that he requested although this was not the case as evidenced by a letter filed with the US Securities and Exchange commission by Musk’s lawyer.

The letter said: "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.”

In recent times, Musk has become more vocal about his beliefs surrounding free speech, criticising the app for banning some accounts, including that of former US President Donald Trump.

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