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Musk threatens to walk away from Twitter deal

Published:Monday | June 6, 2022 | 11:05 AM
Elon Musk speaks at the SATELLITE Conference and Exhibition on March 9, 2020, in Washington. Elon Musk is threatening to end his $44 billion agreement to buy Twitter, accusing the company of refusing to give him information about its spam bot accounts. Lawyers for the Tesla and SpaceX CEO made the threat in a letter to Twitter dated Monday, June 6, 2022, that the social platform included in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

DETROIT (AP) — Elon Musk is threatening to walk away from his $44 billion bid to buy Twitter, accusing the company of refusing to give him information about its spam bot accounts.

Lawyers for the Tesla and SpaceX CEO made the threat in a letter to Twitter dated Monday.

That letter was included in a filing from Twitter with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

The letter says Musk has repeatedly asked for the information since May 9, about a month after his offer to buy the company, so he could evaluate how many of the company's 229 million accounts are fake.

Shares of Twitter Inc. slid more than 3% Monday, likely incensing Twitter shareholders who filed a suit against Musk late last month for deflating the price of the stock.

Shares of Twitter are down 23% in the last month.

A message was left early Monday seeking comment from Twitter.

The lawyers say in the letter that Twitter has offered only to provide details about the company's methods for determining the number of accounts.

But they contend that's “tantamount to refusing Mr. Musk's data requests.”

Musk wants underlying data so he can do his own verification of what he says are Twitter's lax methodologies.

The lawyers say that based on Twitter's latest correspondence, Musk believes the company is resisting and thwarting his information rights under the April merger agreement.

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