Musk’s legal team accuses Twitter of making “false and misleading” assertions during negotiations regarding the platform’s monetizable daily active users (mDAUs).
The following letter is sent by Musk’s lawyers to Twitter’s chief legal officer Vijaya Gadde:
“Twitter is in breach of the Merger Agreement because the Merger Agreement appears to contain materially inaccurate representations…Twitter has repeatedly made statements in such filings regarding the portion of its mDAUs that are false or spam, including statements that: ‘We have performed an internal review of a sample of accounts and estimate that the average of false or spam accounts during the first quarter of 2022 represented fewer than 5% of our mDAU during the quarter…’ Mr. Musk relied on this representation in the Merger Agreement (and Twitter’s numerous public statements regarding false and spam accounts in its publicly filed SEC documents) when agreeing to enter into the Merger Agreement. Mr. Musk has the right to seek rescission of the Merger Agreement in the event these material representations are determined to be false.”
According to Musk’s lawyers, Twitter isn’t being totally honest about the percentage of its users who are bots.
Knowing that Musk’s lawyers terminated the deal based on Twitter’s alleged bot problem may not come as a surprise in view of recent negative publicity.
Another element Musk may be doubting is the sharp decline in stock value. When Musk made the bid to purchase the business, he placed a share price on Twitter of $54.20. The share price has dropped to $36.81 since that time.
It has been said that it won’t be easy for Musk to cancel his purchase of Twitter, whether bots or the end result are to blame.