Elon Musk Terminates $44 Bln Twitter Deal

In a Friday filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), industrialist Elon Musk said he wanted to withdraw his $44 billion bid to buy the social media giant Twitter.

Musk claimed in the filing that Twitter was "in material breach of multiple provisions" of the April agreement and "appears to have made false and misleading representations."

"For nearly two months, Mr. Musk has sought the data and information necessary to 'make an independent assessment of the prevalence of fake or spam accounts on Twitter’s platform,'" the SEC filing by Musk reads.

"This information is fundamental to Twitter’s business and financial performance and is necessary to consummate the transactions contemplated by the Merger Agreement because it is needed to ensure Twitter’s satisfaction of the conditions to closing, to facilitate Mr. Musk’s financing and financial planning for the transaction, and to engage in transition planning for the business. Twitter has failed or refused to provide this information. Sometimes Twitter has ignored Mr. Musk’s requests, sometimes it has rejected them for reasons that appear to be unjustified, and sometimes it has claimed to comply while giving Mr. Musk incomplete or unusable information," it continues.

In response to the move, Twitter said it would sue Musk to complete the merger, adding it is "confident" they will prevail.

The Washington Post reported on rumors of the cancelation on Thursday, noting that by doing so, Musk would incur a $1 billion fine.

He has long raged about the number of "spam bots" on Twitter, which the company says is less than 5% of accounts on the site. Musk also vowed to "authenticate all real humans."

Just two weeks ago, Twitter's Board of Directors approved the buyout, even though Musk told the SEC he didn't have confidence in the company leadership. The deal would have made Twitter a privately-owned company, with Musk owning every share.