“The stage is set for a long legal battle over the fate of the social network”observe the New York Times. Twitter has followed through on its threat to sue Elon Musk, and it will now be up to a Delaware court to decide whether the billionaire “remains forced into takeover, or if Twitter failed to provide the data Musk requested, allowing it to withdraw from the deal”notes the New York daily.
The boss of Tesla and SpaceX immediately reacted with a tweet as provocative as it was laconic: “Oh the irony lol”.
“Twitter’s complaint was expected, since Musk announced last week that he no longer wanted to buy the social network”highlighted CNBC. The whimsical entrepreneur had assured that “the company had not provided him with the necessary information” on the number of fake accounts, making it impossible, according to him, to correctly assess the value of the platform.
Exasperated by his potential buyer but determined to coerce him into marriage, “Twitter doesn’t mince words in its complaint, delivering a scathing critique of Musk and providing insight into the chaos he has wreaked, throughout a saga that has now spanned several months”judge TechCrunch.
“Hypocrisy”
In fact, Twitter’s lawyers are not bothered with politeness and assert that the assertions of Elon Musk “are a model of hypocrisy” and of “bad faith”a string of “pretexts without any merit”.
“After putting on quite a show to turn Twitter into a target, and after going for an acquirer and signing a seller-friendly merger agreement, Musk seems to believe – unlike every other party abiding by Delaware law – that he can freely change its mind, defame the company, disrupt its business, destroy its stock value, and just walk away”can we read in the complaint, reproduced by the Financial Times.
For Twitter lawyers – and for many experts and observers – it is above all the fall in technology stocks in recent months that makes the billionaire regret having put 44 billion dollars on the table for the little bird. blue. The proportion of fake accounts – estimated by the platform at 5% of subscribers – would only be a pretext to find a way out.
“Everything can happen”
The Verge note that it was precisely when the stock price was falling “that Musk started saying Twitter had a problem with fake accounts”. But according to the complaint, the billionaire had never mentioned the subject when signing the agreement, and had not asked Twitter for figures on the subject. He had even removed from the agreement a provision “who would have given him access to non-public information about the company”.
It is now up to the courts to decide, and if Twitter seems “having the advantage, everything – really everything! – can happen”judge Slate. The site interviewed David F. Larcker, a professor at the Stanford University School of Business, who believes the court’s decision will constitute “a previous”because there has never been a case “of this size and involving this kind of people”.
“Honestly, I think anything can happen”he said. “And I think whatever the decision, it will have consequences in the future on the markets and the control of the companies. So it’s a big deal”.
The court could therefore force Elon Musk to buy Twitter, or force him to pay the billion-dollar penalty provided for – conditionally – by the contract. But things could also take another turn, according to NPR : American public radio recalls that “in other merger-related litigation brought before the Delaware courts, the parties have resolved their differences by renegotiating the sale price downwards”.