Elon Musk has informed Twitter he is withdrawing his $44 billion bid to purchase the company, but the reality is much more complicated.
After teasing the possibility of buying Twitter for some time, Musk finally made an offer, which the company’s board of directors eventually accepted. In relatively short order, Musk began to waffle, taking issue with Twitter’s reports concerning the number of spam accounts on the platform. Musk has now rescinded his offer, accusing the company of not being forthcoming with the data he wanted, despite the company giving him access to the data stream other companies pay to access.
“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,” the letter to the SEC reads, according to The Washington Post.
Bret Taylor, co-CEO of Salesforce and Twitter Chairman, said the company plans to pursue legal action to force Musk to follow through on the deal.
Many legal experts are siding with Twitter, saying Musk will be hard-pressed to withdraw from the deal. According to the Post, the agreement included a commitment to go through with the deal unless there was a substantial change to the business. Musk is trying to say that the firing of two executives and layoffs in the company’s acquisition team meets that criteria, but experts say it’s extremely difficult to meet the legal requirements to satisfy the clause in question.
The legal battle taking shape may drag on for months before a resolution is reached. In the meantime, Twitter will likely be worse for wear by the time that resolution occurs.