Elon Musk Countersues Twitter Over $44 Billion Company Takeover

By
David Rufful
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OPINION | This article contains commentary that reflects the author's opinion.

Elon Musk is filing a counter lawsuit against Twitter over the failed $44 billion buyout agreement.

Twitter initially sued Musk in an attempt to force him to complete his $44 billion takeover despite Musk’s concerns about fake accounts far exceeding 5% of users.

Twitter also claims the company was publicly disparaged by Musk because he used a poop emoji in response to their explanation about fake accounts.

“Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users,” Musk tweeted on May 13, adding, “The bots are angry at being counted.”

Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal argued it was not possible for Twitter to determine which accounts are fake “on any given day.”

“Our actual internal estimates for the last four quarters were all well under 5% – based on the methodology outlined above. The error margins on our estimates give us confidence in our public statements each quarter,” Agrawal said.

“Unfortunately, we don’t believe that this specific estimation can be performed externally, given the critical need to use both public and private information (which we can’t share),” he added.

“Externally, it’s not even possible to know which accounts are counted as mDAUs on any given day.”

Take a look at Musk’s reply:

Musk’s lawyer alleges that Twitter was “in material breach of multiple provisions” of the company takeover.

As of now, the deal has been terminated by Musk. Twitter claims the terminate was “invalid and wrongful.”

More from Fox News:

In a filing with the Delaware Court of Chancery on Friday, Musk’s lawyers accused Twitter of withholding information about fake accounts and of creating delays, providing evasive responses and putting up technical obstacles. The filing also disputed Twitter’s request for an expedited trial, claiming that it would take months to obtain information from Twitter and to depose numerous witnesses on the subject of fake accounts.

The filing repeated several other accusations Musk has lodged previously, including the claim that Twitter violated the acquisition agreement when it fired two high-level managers without first informing Musk.

Musk has 20 days from when Twitter filed his lawsuit against him, to file his own counterclaims. The first hearing is scheduled for Tuesday. Twitter’s legal team wants a four-day trial starting in September, while Musk is pushing for a later court date.

Delaware Court of Chancery chancellor Kathaleen McCormick is expected to weigh Twitter’s request for an expedited trial. McCormick would also hear Musk’s countersuit were his legal team to file one.