Elon Musk’s tumultuous will-he-or-won’t-he $44 billion bid to buy Twitter was dead in the water on Friday, after the Tesla CEO sent a letter to the social media company’s board saying he was terminating the acquisition.
Twitter did not immediately comment on the letter, and it was not clear if the board would accept the $1 billion breakup fee or if there will be a court battle over the deal.
The drama between Twitter and the world’s richest man was set off in March, when Musk announced he would pull the funds together to buy the company that he thought was failing to live up to its potential to promote free speech. He also revealed that he had been talking to executives at Twitter, including co-founder Jack Dorsey, to let them know he was buying up shares in an attempt to gain a majority.
However, in the weeks that followed, Musk wavered between doubling down on his determination to buy the company and the threatening to walk away from the deal.
In a court filing, Musk’s lawyers said that Twitter had breached the acquisition agreement by failing to provide enough information about fake accounts on its platform. According to the document, this was an important piece of data for measuring the company’s business performance.
Shares of Twitter fell 6% in extended trading following the news.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated does it mean now the deal is over? stay runed as we updates you on the next move.
