Twitter has reportedly brought in the heavy hitters to take on Elon Musk, in a move designed to hold the billionaire entrepreneur to the $44 billion deal he wants to scrap.
According to a report from Bloomberg published Sunday, Twitter has hired Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz — big names in business merger law — to enforce Musk’s original agreement to buy the social media platform for $44 billion.
Musk has hired Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP, the same firm that has represented him at least twice before — once in a 2019 defamation case, which he won, and also in a still ongoing suit stemming from his 2018 attempt to make Tesla, Inc. private.
The Tesla CEO informed Twitter via his attorneys on Friday that he was not prepared to go through with the deal as originally stated, saying that even though he had repeatedly asked Twitter to verify how many of the platform’s accounts were fake/”bot” accounts, the social media giant had failed to do so.
“Mr. Musk and his financial advisors at Morgan Stanley have been requesting critical information from Twitter as far back as May 9, 2022—and repeatedly since then—on the relationship between Twitter’s disclosed mDAU figures and the prevalence of false or spam accounts on the platform,” the letter stated, adding, “Notwithstanding these repeated requests over the past two months, Twitter has still failed to provide much of the data and information responsive to Mr. Musk’s repeated requests.”
The original agreement included a $1 billion “break-up” fee if anyone were to back out of the contract — but Twitter is pushing back and plans to hold Musk accountable for the full $44 billion.
Bret Taylor, the chair of Twitter’s board, tweeted, “The Twitter Board is committed to closing the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon with Mr. Musk and plans to pursue legal action to enforce the merger agreement. We are confident we will prevail in the Delaware Court of Chancery.”
The Twitter Board is committed to closing the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon with Mr. Musk and plans to pursue legal action to enforce the merger agreement. We are confident we will prevail in the Delaware Court of Chancery.
— Bret Taylor (@btaylor) July 8, 2022
Delaware’s chancery court is considered the best of the best when it comes dealing in business law and routinely handles merger disputes.