X

Updated July 12, 2022 10:41 am ET / Original July 12, 2022 9:23 am ET Order Reprints Print Article Elon Musk’s attempt to bail on his $44 billion takeover of Twitter has roiled shares in the social media company as investors face uncertainty over the future of the deal. It’s just one more sign that he never should have tried to buy the company. The Tesla (ticker: TSLA) CEO announced late last week that he was terminating the merger agreement with Twitter (TWTR), alleging that it was in material breach of their deal as a result of misrepresenting how many of its users are spam accounts. Twitter has made clear that it will take Musk to court to enforce the deal.

Elon Musk’s attempt to walk away from his $44 billion deal to buy Twitter is likely to result in a protracted legal battle between the billionaire and the social media platform.  Musk’s team contended in a filing Friday that Twitter had breached the agreement, which allows him to terminate the purchase.   But Twitter is unlikely to let the Tesla and SpaceX CEO off the hook from what it says is a binding commitment to purchase the company, and it retains the ability to ask a judge to compel Musk to complete the deal.   The company is expected to take the dispute to Delaware Chancery Court, a local court that handles investor disputes, as early as this week.   Chancery judges in Delaware, which is the corporate home for more than half the public companies in the U.S., including Twitter, hear complex business law cases without juries.   Twitter will most likely seek a declaratory judgment in the case, asking the judge to determine whether the company has violated the terms of the sale agreement.   Musk and his legal team in Friday’s filing outlined three ways they believe Twitter violated the contract, two of which concern the number of bot accounts on the platform. …

Elon Musk just couldn’t help himself on Monday morning. Having announced the termination of his $44bn (£37bn) takeover of Twitter, he took to the platform he no longer wants to buy and mocked its likely legal response.Musk’s tweet to his 100 million followers stated: “They want to force me to buy Twitter in court.” Twitter does indeed have grounds to seek an order requiring Musk to buy the business, despite him pulling out in a dispute over the number of spam or bot accounts on the platform.But, as has often been the case with the deal itself, the world’s richest man doesn’t appear to take the threat seriously. “Now they have to disclose bot info in court,” says one caption in the tweet, illustrated by a series of photos of Musk laughing uproariously. It was followed by a picture of the vintage action star Chuck Norris at a chessboard, with Musk tweeting under it: “Chuckmate.”Despite being surrounded by the best advisers money can buy, Musk has had an erratic relationship with the legal minutiae of his now abandoned $44bn Twitter takeover. On the one hand, his legal team has filed tightly argued disclosures against the deal, citing various clauses in…

Elon Musk’s silence over his attempt to bail out on purchasing Twitter for $44bn is no more.Early on Monday, the world’s richest man went on the social media platform he claims he is no longer trying to buy and fired off a series of tweets suggesting he is gearing up for the legal battle his withdrawal from the sale is expected to spur.One tweet contained a four-picture frame meme of him laughing, next to sentences reading: “They said I couldn’t buy Twitter. Then they wouldn’t disclose bot info. Now they want to force me to buy Twitter in court. Now they have to disclose bot info in court.”Another tweet was a picture of the actor Chuck Norris sitting at a chessboard with his chin resting atop his folding hands. A reply to that tweet read “Chuckmate” – a clear pun for “checkmate”.The tweets, from Musk’s verified account, served as his first comments on his legal team’s Friday disclosure that he intends to nix his takeover of Twitter, which the network first resisted but then warmed up to.Twitter announced in late April that it would sell to Musk, but on Friday, lawyers for Musk publicly filed notice that he wanted out…

Twitter was all crazy as Suryakumar Yadav hit his maiden T20I hundred for India as the Men in Blue pursued a record chase against England in the third T20I of the series being played at the Trent Bridge ground in Nottingham on July 10, 2022. England had won the toss and Jos Buttler decided to bat first this time, and also announced that two changes were made. Phil Salt and Reece Topley were included in the XI for Sam Curran and Matt Parkinson. India, on the other hand, made four changes as Shreyas Iyer, Avesh Khan, Umran Malik, and Ravi Bishnoi came in for Hardik Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah, and Yuzvendra Chahal. David Malan PC- Twitter Dawid Malan was the top-scorer for the England side, as he slammed 77 in 39 balls with 6 fours and 5 sixes to his name. He got good support from Liam Livingstone, who made 42* with 4 sixes to his name. Other major contributors were Jason Roy (27), Chris Jordan (19), and Jos Buttler (18), as England slammed 215/7 in 20 overs. For India, Ravi Bishnoi and Harshal Patel, both took 2 wickets finishing with figures of 2/30 and 2/35 respectively. Suryakumar Yadav…

Twitter is taking on the Indian government, and the stakes are high. The company’s lodging of a lawsuit to dispute overbroad content-blocking orders could mark a pivotal moment for internet speech around the world.Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party has been chipping away at free expression online for some time, most notably with the passing of a law last year extending the executive’s censorship powers. Now, the government can demand that news and information providers remove certain material within 36 hours of receiving a request, and it can initiate criminal proceedings against a designated company grievance officer located in the country if these mandates are rebuffed. These threats don’t appear idle: Twitter’s top executive was summoned by police in one state for failing to take down a violent video; armed forces once showed up at the company’s offices as part of an investigation about a matter as anodyne as a tweet having been labeled “manipulated media.”Perhaps it is not surprising, then, that while Twitter has in the past resisted blocking the posts of Indian journalists, activists and politicians, the company acquiesced this month after apparently receiving a noncompliance letter. The firm geographically restricted tweets from writers including Post…

Choose your subscription Digital Be informed with the essentialnews and opinion MyFT – track the topics most important to you FT Weekend – full access to the weekend content Mobile & Tablet Apps – download to read on the go Gift Article – share up to 10 articles a month with family, friends and colleagues Print FT print edition delivered Monday - Saturday along with ePaper access Delivery to your home or office Monday to Saturday FT Weekend paper – a stimulating blend of news and lifestyle features ePaper access – the digital replica of the printed newspaper Team or Enterprise Premium FT.com access for multiple users, with integrations & admin tools Group Subscription Premium Digital access, plus: Convenient access for groups of users Integration with third party platforms and CRM systems Usage based pricing and volume discounts for multiple users Subscription management tools and usage reporting SAML-based single sign-on (SSO) Dedicated account and customer success teams Receive free limited access to select FT areas including email newsletters, Alphaville and 3 articles of your choice Or, if you are already a subscriber Sign in Are you a student or a professor? Check if your university has an FT membership to…

New York (CNN Business)Elon Musk moved Friday afternoon to terminate his $44 billion deal to buy Twitter — the latest twist in a whirlwind process in which the billionaire Tesla CEO became the company's biggest shareholder, turned down a board seat, agreed to buy the social media platform and then started raising doubts about going through with the deal. The next chapter in the saga is almost certain to be a court battle. A lawyer representing Musk claimed in a letter to Twitter's top lawyer that he is ending the deal because Twitter (TWTR) is "in material breach of multiple provisions" of the original agreement, which was signed in April, according to a regulatory filing Friday evening. Musk has for weeks expressed concerns, without any apparent evidence, that there are a greater number of bots and spam accounts on the platform than Twitter has said publicly. Analysts have speculated that the concerns may be an attempt to create a pretext to get out of a deal he may now see as overpriced, after Twitter shares and the broader tech market have declined in recent weeks. Tesla (TSLA) stock, which Musk was planning to rely on in part to finance the…

Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal is “willing to go to war” to make Elon Musk follow through on his $44 billion acquisition of the social media giant amid reports that the deal could be in jeopardy over the site’s handling of spam and “bot” accounts. Parag Agrawal, who assumed the chief executive job last fall after company co-founder Jack Dorsey stepped down from the role, is reportedly starting to “come out fighting” after Musk repeatedly criticized the company that he has committed to buy and take private. “Parag wants to swing back more and is being more aggressive internally,” a former Twitter executive told Financial Times. “It seems Twitter is willing to go to war to make this deal happen.” Agrawal would be due to receive a payout of $42 million under the current terms of the buyout. As with a handful of other Twitter executives, Agrawal’s payout would be triggered by a so-called “change in control” clause in their contracts which kicks in if either of them is terminated within 12 months of new ownership assuming the helm of the company. Shares of Twitter fell by nearly 4% in the first hour of trading on Wall Street on Friday. The…

Disagreements over spam accounts could alter the deal. A new report has suggested that Elon Musk's plan to buy Twitter is in "serious jeopardy", with the billionaire believing that the social network's spam account figures are not verifiable.According to The Washington Post, Musk and his team have doubts over the figures Twitter has provided in regards to how many spam accounts are registered on the service. The publication's sources say Musk's belief that these figures are not verifiable means that he does not have enough information to evaluate Twitter's prospects as a business venture. It is expected that Musk will take "potentially drastic action" in response. Starting in May, Musk threatened to walk away from his Twitter buyout if the platform didn't meet his demands over spam accounts. He initially said that he would not purchase the social network unless it could confirm less than 5% of accounts were fake or spam bots, and while Twitter itself claims that the number does indeed hover around 5%, Musk appears to be unsatisfied with their data. While Musk may well take "drastic action" and attempt to step away from the deal, it will not be a clean break. As The Washington Post…