(Washington) Elon Musk on Saturday challenged the boss of Twitter to publicly debate and prove the share of false accounts on the social network, a point of disagreement put forward by the American multi-billionaire to withdraw his purchase offer, launching a battle judicial.
Posted at 3:03 p.m.
“If Twitter simply provides its method of sampling 100 accounts and how they turned out to be real, the deal should continue on the original terms,” Elon Musk tweeted on Saturday.
“However, if it turns out that their statements to the SEC (US stock market regulator) are materially false, this cannot be the case,” he warned.
Elon Musk had signed a $ 44 billion agreement to buy the social network, before breaking it unilaterally in early July.
He believes that Twitter lied about the proportion of automated accounts and spam on its platform, and even claims that the social network has “frauded”, by deliberately increasing the number of monetizable accounts.
“I challenge Parag Agrawal (CEO of Twitter) to publicly debate the percentage of fake accounts on Twitter,” the whimsical Tesla boss also tweeted.
“Let it prove to the public that Twitter has less than 5% fake or unwanted daily users,” he added.
A legal battle is now underway. A trial is due to open on October 17 before the Delaware Court of Chancery, a court specializing in business law, and last five days.
Twitter has indeed sued the richest man on the planet, to force him to honor his promise. The latter counterattacked before the same court, with a complaint in which he asks the court to release him from the agreement and to order Twitter to pay him damages.
Previously, the shareholders of Twitter will meet on September 13 to authorize or not this acquisition, which would represent a substantial added value for the shareholders.