$44bn deal to buy Twitter is ditched by Elon Musk

n Musk is seeking to end his $44bn (£36bn) bid to buy Twitter, alleging multiple breaches of the agreement. Mr. Musk said he backed out because Twitter failed to provide enough information on the number of spam and fake accounts.

Twitter says it plans to pursue legal action to enforce the agreement. Twitter chairman Bret Taylor wrote in a Tweet, “the Twitter Board is committed to closing the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon with Mr. Musk, setting up a long and protracted legal battle between the two sides. The original agreement includes a $1bn ( £830m) break-up fee.

The latest twist in a long-running saga after the world’s richest person decided to buy Twitter in April and in May, Mr. Musk said the deal was “Temporarily on hold” and he was waiting for data on the number of fake and spam accounts on Twitter. Musk had asked for evidence to back the company’s assertion that spam and bot accounts make up less than 5 per cent of its total users.  In a letter filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Mr. Musk’s lawyers said Twitter had 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”, the letter reads.

Spam accounts are designed to spread information to large numbers of people and manipulate the way they interact with the platform. On Thursday, Twitter said it removed around 1 million such accounts each day. Mr. Musk believes that spam or bot accounts could account for 20 per cent or more of Twitter users.

Shares in Twitter fell by 7 per cent in extended trading after the announcement.

Twitter has a problem with bots, and only yesterday it said it removed million spam accounts a day.

Musk’s position of free speech and how Twitter might moderate in the future- based on the laws of individual countries is sometimes naïve.