Prosecuted for withdrawing his purchase offer, Elon Musk officially accuses Twitter of fraud – 20 Minutes

His complaint describes “distorted representations” of the social network as “sins”. Himself sued by Twitter for his failed buyout offer, Elon Musk filed Thursday evening in a Delaware state business court the 165 pages of arguments in his own complaint against the blue bird. He accuses Twitter of having defrauded on the number of monetizable accounts of the social network. The billionaire’s lawyers thus accuse the company of having “masked the truth” on the number of 238 million claimed monetizable daily users. According to them, they are about 65 million less and “the majority of advertisements” would only appear “to less than 16 million users, a fraction” of what Twitter claims. Part of “hide and seek The complaint finally claims that “Twitter frantically blocked information from circulating in a desperate attempt to prevent (Elon Musk) from discovering the fraud”, evoking a game of “hide and seek” to prevent as long as possible the buyer to “discern the truth”.Twitter replies that the businessman rushed the negotiations and that the agreement never mentioned the fake accounts, and the lawyers of the social network denounce an “attempt to escape a contract that Musk no longer finds interesting since the stock market fell.” buy it, e n last April. After signing a buyout deal for $54.20 per share, Musk unilaterally called off the deal, claiming the San Francisco-based company allegedly lied about the proportion of automated and spam accounts on its platform. In mid-July, Twitter sued Elon Musk in the Delaware Court of Chancery, a court specializing in business law, to force him to honor his acquisition commitment for $44 billion. A trial which should open on October 17. Two weeks later, the richest man in the world had counter-attacked with a “confidential” complaint. The confrontation does not leave Twitter unscathed. Between the general decline in the stock market in recent months, the decline in social media advertising revenue linked to the economic situation and public criticism of Elon Musk, its stock collapsed to around $32 on July 11. It was worth $41.97 on Friday, up 2.20%.