San Francisco Elon Musk is once again threatening to pull out of his planned $ 44 billion takeover of the short messaging service Twitter. In a letter published by his lawyers on Monday, it is said that Twitter has “clearly violated” its obligations. Musk therefore reserves all rights to terminate the merger agreement. The head of the car manufacturer Tesla had already said that he would temporarily put the deal on hold and justified this by wanting to have accurate data on the proportion of fake Twitter accounts first. According to the short message service, the number is less than five percent, while Musk assumes at least a fifth of users.
“Musk believes that Twitter is manifestly refusing to comply with its obligations under the merger agreement, which reinforces the suspicion that the company is withholding the requested data for fear of what Musk’s own analysis of this data will reveal,” his lawyers said in the letter. “Musk believes that the company is actively defending its information rights and thwarting them.“
Twitter shares fell four percent after the start of trading. Tesla’s shares, on the other hand, rose by more than two percent. The head of the electric car pioneer Tesla had previously agreed with the company to take over Twitter for $ 54.20 per share. At prices of around $ 40, however, investors are currently apparently very skeptical about whether there really is a corresponding deal.