Twitter sues Elon Musk to hold him to $44 billion deal

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Twitter sued Elon Musk on Tuesday for violating his $44-billion deal to buy the social media platform.

It asked a Delaware court to order the world’s richest person to complete the merger at the agreed price.

The complaint said, “Musk apparently believes that he – unlike every other party subject to Delaware contract law – is free to change his mind, trash the company, disrupt its operations, destroy stockholder value, and walk away.”

It comes after Musk announced on Friday he was ditching the deal, accusing Twitter of breaching the agreement by failing to respond to requests for information regarding fake or spam accounts on the platform.

But Twitter has clapped back at Musk’s claims, saying it’s the Tesla CEO who has “a long list” of violations of the merger agreement.

The social media firm also explained it did not share more information with Musk regarding spam accounts for fear he would build a competing platform and abandon the acquisition.

Twitter called the reasons cited by Musk a “pretext” that lacked merit and said his decision to walk away had more to do with the recent decline in the stock market, especially for tech stocks.

Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In a memo addressing staff on Tuesday, seen by Reuters, Twitter Chief Executive Parag Agrawal sought to reassure employees about the future.

He wrote, “We will prove our position in court and we believe we will prevail.”