Elon Musk on Saturday challenged the boss of Twitter to publicly discuss and prove the proportion of false accounts on the social network, a point of disagreement put forward by the American multi-billionaire to withdraw his offer to purchase, launching a legal battle.
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“If Twitter simply provides its method of sampling 100 accounts and how they turned out to be real, the deal should continue on the original terms,” Elon Musk tweeted on Saturday.
“However, if it turns out that their filings with the SEC [régulateur boursier américain] are indeed false, that cannot be the case,” he warned.
Elon Musk had signed a $ 44 billion agreement to buy the social network, before breaking it unilaterally in early July.
He believes that Twitter lied about the proportion of automated accounts and spam on its platform and even claims that the social network “fraud” by voluntarily increasing the number of monetizable accounts.
“I challenge Parag Agrawal [directeur général de Twitter] to publicly discuss the percentage of fake accounts on Twitter,” the whimsical Tesla boss also tweeted.
“Let’s prove to the public that Twitter has less than 5% of daily users who are fake or spam,” he added.
A legal battle is now underway. A trial is due to open on October 17 before the Delaware Court of Chancery, a court specializing in business law, and it is expected to last five days.
Twitter has indeed sued the richest man on the planet to force him to honor his promise to purchase. The latter counterattacked before the same court with a request to the court to release him from the agreement and to order Twitter to pay him damages.
Until the trial, the shareholders of Twitter will meet on September 13 to authorize or not this acquisition, which would represent a substantial added value for the shareholders.