Twitter is suing Elon Musk to force him into a takeover

Twitter launched lawsuits against Elon Musk on Tuesday to force the boss of Tesla to keep his commitment to buy the social network according to the terms agreed at the end of April, which valued the Californian group at 44 billion dollars, according to a document consulted by AFP . A judge from a court specializing in business law, in the state of Delaware (eastern United States), will therefore have to determine whether or not the multi-billionaire can terminate the acquisition agreement which provides for compensation. billion dollar break.

“Elon Musk’s exit strategy is a model of hypocrisy” and one “bad faith model“, say the platform’s lawyers, who seem determined to fight it out. “After putting on quite a show to make Twitter a target, and after proposing and then signing a merger deal, Musk seems to believe he’s free — unlike any party bound by a contract under the law of the Delaware — to change your mind, defame the company, disrupt its business, destroy its stock value, and wash your hands of it“, they assert from the start in a judicial document consulted by AFP.

The whimsical entrepreneur took a stake in Twitter at the start of the year, before announcing his intention to buy the platform, which he considers too “censoredin the interests of democracy.

Read alsoTwitter and Elon Musk: after four months of twists and turns, look back at the saga of an aborted takeover

Information deemed insufficient

To justify its unilateral decision on Friday to terminate the agreement, its lawyers assured that Twitter had not provided all the information requested on inauthentic accounts active on the network and minimized the number of spam messages.

But for the blue bird,Musk’s behavior simply confirms that he wanted to get out of a contract he signed freely, and hurt Twitter at the same time“. “Oh the irony lol“, reacted Elon Musk on Twitter Tuesday. On Monday, he posted an image with four photos of himself, hilarious, with this caption: “They said I couldn’t buy Twitter. Then they refused to reveal the information about the fake accounts. Now they want to force me to take over Twitter in court. Now they are forced to reveal information about fake accounts“.

For several months, the richest man in the world has been increasing attacks and mockery against the network where he is followed by more than 100 million people. He sharply criticized its content moderation policy, and publicly mocked some executives. At the height of the row over the number of inauthentic accounts, he pitted a poop emoji against arguments from Twitter boss Parag Agrawal.

“Determined to conclude”

“He pretended to ‘suspend’ the deal pending fulfillment of imaginary conditions, failed in his obligation to find financing (…) breached his duty of confidentiality (and) used confidential information for bad purposes“, list the lawyers of the company. Elon Musk”did not use the means necessary to carry out the acquisition“, they add. “Twitter has suffered and will continue to suffer irreparable harm from these breaches.“.

On Friday, the chairman of the board of directors (CA) of the platform, Bret Taylor, had warned that the CA was “determined to complete the transaction at the agreed price and termsand intended to prevail in court. “There is a whole range of possible outcomes: a negotiated agreement between the parties to avoid litigation, payment of severance pay, enforcement of the contract and a myriad of other possibilities.noted analyst Dan Ives on Tuesday.

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Different experts in business law agree to give the advantage to Twitter in terms of legal arguments, but believe that the social network will suffer permanently from this case, whatever the conclusion. “Musk has a black eye and Twitter (and its employees) live a horror moviecommented Dan Ives. “It’s a soap opera without a winner“.