Meme aficionado and world’s richest person Elon Musk issued his first public response to Twitter’s promise to take him to court to enforce the terms of his $44 billion takeover offer for the company. .
Musk, just after midnight ET on Sunday, tweeted a memes showing the famous CEO laughing at the turn of events. It focuses on the billionaire’s central claim to rescue the Twitter deal: that the company has refused to provide evidence to support its claim that spam and fake accounts on Twitter account for less than 5% of total daily active users.
“They said I couldn’t buy Twitter,” the post reads, accompanied by images of Musk becoming more cheerful. “Then they wouldn’t reveal the bot information. Now they want to force me to buy Twitter in court. Now they have to reveal the bot information in court.”
Twitter has hired the powerful M&A law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to represent it in litigation against Musk, and the social media company plans to file a lawsuit against Musk as early as this week. Bloomberg reported.
Twitter shares were down around 5% in premarket trading on Monday, at around $35 a share. Under the terms of Musk’s original offer for Twitter, $54.20/share.
On Friday, Musk told Twitter that he would terminate the acquisition, accusing the company of breaching its contract by (among other things) “drastically underestimating the proportion of spam and fake accounts.” Twitter has claimed for years that spam and bot accounts make up less than 5% of its active user base. But it’s unclear why Musk didn’t do his due diligence on the issue before closing the $44 billion takeover deal.
Twitter plans to sue Musk in Delaware Chancery Court. “Twitter’s Board is committed to closing the transaction at the price and terms agreed to with Mr. Musk and plans to take legal action to enforce the merger agreement,” Twitter Chairman Bret Taylor said. tweeted on Friday.
Even if he wins his decision to exit the Twitter deal, Musk may have to pay a $1 billion breakup fee to the company unless he can prove he materially misled you about factors related to the company’s value. .