Twitter has reportedly hired a heavy-hitting law firm to hold Elon Musk to his $44 billion offer to purchase the social platform.
According to a report from Bloomberg, the social media giant has hired Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz – big names in business merger law – to enforce Musk’s original offer.
On Friday, Musk informed Twitter via his attorney that he was not prepared to go through with the purchase due to the platform’s lack of verifying how many of the platform’s accounts were fake/”bot” accounts.
The communication from Musk’s legal team, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP read in part, “Mr. Musk and his financial advisors at Morgan Stanley have been requesting critical information from Twitter as far back as May 9, 2022—and repeatedly since then—on the relationship between Twitter’s disclosed mDAU figures and the prevalence of false or spam accounts on the platform,” the letter indicated, adding, “Notwithstanding these repeated requests over the past two months, Twitter has still failed to provide much of the data and information responsive to Mr. Musk’s repeated requests.”
Christopher Bouzy, the founder of research firm Bot Sentinel, which tracks fake Twitter accounts used for disinformation or harassment, noted that Musk’s legal team had valid questions about Twitter’s lack of transparency.
“It seems they’re hiding something,” Bouzy said, who believes the number of fake/bot accounts is higher than Twitter claims.
According to the Associated Press, Twitter’s chairman of the board, Brett Taylor, fired back on Friday, vowing to sue Musk and enforce the merger.
The Twitter Board is committed to closing the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon with Mr. Musk and plans to pursue legal action to enforce the merger agreement. We are confident we will prevail in the Delaware Court of Chancery.
— Bret Taylor (@btaylor) July 8, 2022
Taylor also tweeted his confidence that the social media giant would win the legal battle in the Delaware Court of Chancery. The Chancery Court is the nation’s top court dealing with corporations, business entities and business law.
Musk tweeted a response on Monday.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 11, 2022
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 11, 2022
