Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has sent a new letter to terminate the $44 billion deal to acquire social media company Twitter.
It is noteworthy that the letter in question was sent after the former security chief of Twitter, Pieter Zatko, filed a criminal complaint regarding the company’s practices regarding fake accounts.
Musk’s attorney, Mike Ringler, penned a new letter on August 29 regarding the deal to buy Twitter, according to a notice to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
“TWITTER VIOLATIONS SOME OF THE PROVISIONS”
In the letter, which drew attention to Zatko’s allegations, it was noted that if these were true, Twitter violated some of the provisions of the agreement. The letter reportedly stated that the allegations presented additional and specific grounds for termination of the agreement.
It was also reported that Musk asked the company’s former head of security, Zatko, for information on Twitter’s method of measuring ‘spam’ accounts.
WHAT HAPPENED?
Zatko, Twitter’s former head of security, filed a criminal complaint as a whistleblower, alleging that the company misled federal officials about spam and bot accounts.
In Zatko’s criminal complaint, it was claimed that Twitter prioritized the increase in the number of users instead of reducing the number of spam accounts, and that the administrators received bonuses of up to 10 million dollars due to the increase in the number of daily users.
Twitter, on the other hand, denied the allegations in the criminal complaint.
Elon Musk announced on July 8 that he had terminated his agreement to acquire Twitter, citing the violation of multiple provisions.
Musk’s lawyers stated in a statement to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that Twitter did not respond or refused to respond to multiple requests for information about fake or spam accounts on the platform, which is important to the company’s business performance.
Twitter, on the other hand, sued Musk for terminating the deal. Twitter’s lawsuit against Musk will begin on October 17. (AA)