Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk said on Friday he was terminating his $44 billion deal for Twitter Inc., citing a material breach of multiple provisions of the agreement.
The announcement likely brings to an end a will-he-won’t-he saga after the world’s richest person clinched a deal for Twitter in April but then put the buyout on hold until the social media company proved that spam bots accounted for less than 5 percent of its total users.
In a filing, Musk’s lawyers said Twitter had failed or refused to respond to multiple requests for information on fake or spam accounts on the platform, which is fundamental to the company’s business performance.
Last month, Twitter allowed Musk access to its “firehose,” a repository of raw data on hundreds of millions of daily tweets.
Musk’s deal with Twitter had included a provision that if it fell apart, the party breaking the agreement would pay a termination fee of $1 billion, under certain circumstances. Legal experts have debated whether the conflict over spam bots is enough to allow Musk to walk away from the deal.
It’s unclear if Twitter will challenge Musk in court. Twitter did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Bloomberg contributed to this report.
