Musks Claims Twitter's "Fake Account" Evasion Is a Major Breach

In a letter to the company published on Monday, Elon Musk accuses Twitter of "resisting and obstructing" his right to posses the information about Twitter fake accounts, calling it a "clear substantial violation" of the terms of their merger agreement.

The accusations follow the ongoing dispute between Musk and Twitter that started in April with Musk questioning the amount of fake accounts - the so-called “scams” and “bots” on the platform. Last month Musk wrote on Twitter that the $44 billion purchase would not move forward until he had more information about the number of fake accounts on the service. Later, on May 17, Musk suggested Twitter had included bad information in its financial filings. Mr. Musk said his team would conduct a random sampling of Twitter accounts to calculate the number of those fake, but Twitter’s CEO warned that in order to get an accurate count nonpublic information would be required. Twitter executives told staff there’s “no such thing” as putting the deal on hold as Musk claimed. This Monday’s new wave of heated debate drops Twitter shares by 5%.

The Monday’s letter signed by Musk’s attorney Mike Ringler states that Tesla and SpaceX CEO retains all the rights arising out of the agreement, including the right not to enter into a transaction and the right to avoid the contract. Besides, Musk’s lawyer wrote that the merger agreement requires Twitter to provide the data requested by Musk while also disputing the company’s claim that it is only required to provide information for the limited purpose of helping to close the transaction.

According to the letter, Mr. Musk has a right to request the information and data for ‘any reasonable business purpose related to the consummation of the transaction’, while Twitter is obligated to provide it. Due t alleged misbehaving of Twitter Musk believes the social platform violates its contract obligations, which enhances the suspicion that the company is withholding the requested data due to concern for what Mr. Musk’s own analysis of that data will disclose”.

In turn, Twitter response states that Twitter will continue to share the information with Musk to consummate the transaction and enforce the contract in accordance with the terms of the merger agreement”.

In a separate matter, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigates Elon Musk asking why the CEO did not file a schedule 13G form, announcing his acquisition of a significant stake in Twitter within the required time frame.