Elon Musk Has Disparaged Twitter in at Least 16 Tweets, Which the Company Says Violates His Acquisition Agreement
variety.comTodd Spangler NY Digital EditorElon Musk is a freewheeling, shoot-from-the-lip kind of Twitter user who is famously fond of memes.But now Musk’s snarky and derogatory tweets aimed at Twitter have been dragged into court.
The company, which is suing to force the mega-billionaire complete his $44 billion buyout, alleges that Musk has on multiple occasions violated a provision of the merger agreement stipulating that Musk may tweet about the deal only “so long as such Tweets do not disparage the Company or any of its Representatives.”“Since signing the merger agreement, Musk has repeatedly disparaged Twitter and the deal, creating business risk for Twitter and downward pressure on its share price,” the company’s lawsuit claimed.
Indeed, Musk has dissed or mocked Twitter or its employees at least 16 times on the social network since announcing his binding deal to buy Twitter on April 25.
Musk purportedly wants to nix the deal over his hunch that Twitter has more spam and bot accounts than it acknowledges; Twitter alleges the spam/bot issue is a red herring and that Musk actually wants to scrap the pact because the deal has become more expensive for him personally given the sharp drop in Tesla’s stock price.Twitter is hoping to build a case that shows Musk has acted in bad faith — to persuade the court to order Musk to pay up, or use the litigation as leverage to cut a favorable settlement.Musk’s disparaging tweets include a post on July 10, prior to Twitter suing Musk in the Delaware Court of Chancery, in which he responded to the company’s legal threat with a meme showing himself laughing at the prospect of the company needing to disclose data about spam and fake accounts in court. “They said I couldn’t buy Twitter.
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