Elon Musk accuses Twitter of fraud in legal battle over takeover

Europe 1 with AFP 8:47 p.m., August 05, 2022

Multi-billionaire and Tesla boss Elon Musk accuses Twitter of "fraud" in the lawsuit over the $44 billion deal he signed to acquire the social network but is seeking to break.

Elon Musk, in arguments filed Thursday evening in a Delaware state business court, accuses Twitter of having defrauded the number of monetizable accounts of the social network, according to this 165-page court document consulted Friday by the AFP.

A legal battle is engaged between the richest man on the planet and the social network.

Twitter wants to force Musk to honor his commitment

Elon Musk's lawyers accuse Twitter of having "hidden the truth" about the number of 238 million monetizable daily users claimed by the social network.

According to them, they are about 65 million less and "the majority of advertisements" would only appear "to less than 16 million users, a fraction" of what Twitter claims.

The complaint, which calls "misrepresentations" of the social network "sins", claims that "Twitter frantically blocked information from circulating in a desperate attempt to prevent (Elon Musk) from discovering the fraud".

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In mid-July, Twitter sued Elon Musk in the Delaware Court of Chancery, a court specializing in business law, to force him to honor his acquisition commitment for $ 44 billion.

The trial is due to start on October 17.

Two weeks later, the richest man in the world had counterattacked with a "confidential" complaint.

Musk accuses Twitter of lying about the proportion of automated accounts

Elon Musk approached Twitter in April, then signed a buyout deal for $54.20 a share.

He unilaterally ended it in early July, on the grounds that the San Francisco-based company allegedly lied about the proportion of automated and spam accounts on its platform.

Tesla boss accuses board of covering up true proportion of inauthentic accounts

Twitter estimates it to be less than 5%.

The official documents filed by the platform with the American stock market policeman "contain numerous material misrepresentations and omissions which distort the value of Twitter and led Elon Musk to agree to buy the company at an inflated price", assure the lawyers of business man.

Twitter's strategy, they continue, has been to "play hide and seek" to keep the buyer from "discerning the truth" for as long as possible.

Twitter stock plummets

Twitter responds that the businessman rushed the negotiations and that the agreement never mentioned the fake accounts, and the lawyers of the social network denounce an "attempt to escape from a contract that Musk no longer finds interesting since the stock market has gone down.

Between the general decline in the stock market in recent months, the decline in social media advertising revenue linked to economic conditions and public criticism from Elon Musk, Twitter's stock collapsed to around $32 on July 11.

It was worth $41.97 on Friday, up 2.20%.

The title of Tesla lost 6.05% to 869.92 dollars.