Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has warned Twitter’s board of directors that he may back out of a deal to buy the social media platform for $44 billion because the company hasn’t been forthcoming with information on fake and spam bot accounts.
“This is a clear material breach of Twitter’s obligations under the merger agreement, and Mr. Musk reserves all rights resulting therefrom, including his right not to consummate the transaction and his right to terminate the merger agreement,” lawyers for the Tesla and SpaceX CEO said on Monday in a letter to Twitter.
At issue is Musk’s demand for the calculations supporting Twitter’s estimate that less than 5% of its accounts are fake. The South African-born billionaire has claimed that around 20% of supposed Twitter users aren’t real, and he has vowed to crack down on spam bots. He said last month that he had paused the takeover on concern over the fake accounts and that he might try to renegotiate the acquisition price to reflect the number of bogus users.