Elon Musk is pulling out of $44B Twitter deal, spurring tweets about free speech and spam
Elon Musk is backing out of a plan to buy Twitter. In a Friday filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission, his legal team said the social media company made “false and misleading” statements during negotiations and was in “material breach” of their agreement.
On Monday, Twitter said in a statement that it has been cooperatively sharing information with Musk “in accordance with the terms of the merger agreement” and noted that the deal is in “the best interest of all shareholders.”
This development comes less than three months after Musk made a $44 billion offer to buy Twitter, which the company accepted. Musk has spoken out against spam bots and fake accounts on the platform in recent months and accused the company of undercounting such accounts, including in May when he tweeted without providing evidence that at least 20% of Twitter was made up by fake or spam accounts.
Users of the platform were quick to react to the news.
Can't wait for the next @thepivot podcast episode. @profgalloway and @karaswisher called this Elon shenanigan from the jump.
— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) July 8, 2022
BREAKING: Elon Musk terminates Twitter deal.
This is what a win for free speech actually looks like.— Public Citizen (@Public_Citizen) July 8, 2022
Elon Musk files to pull out of Twitter deal https://t.co/SIF1tIhgLC pic.twitter.com/hjWfM63BWR
— Washington Post TikTok Guy 🥛 (@davejorgenson) July 8, 2022
Elon musk is terminating his agreement to buy Twitter: So basically Twitter has a huge amount of spam accounts —way more than they let on — and has gotten busted for it!!!
As I said weeks ago spam accounts are probably 50% not 5% of Twitter users. A— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) July 8, 2022
plot twist: the “spam bots” defeated the bid itself pic.twitter.com/hLo1u1msLR
— Renee DiResta (@noUpside) July 8, 2022
I truly believe if this deal dies, and it's because there are more bots than known.. this site and app will die.
Elon Musk
Twitter@elonmusk— Joe Pags Pagliarulo (@JoeTalkShow) July 8, 2022
NEW: @ElonMusk moves to end @Twitter deal. Free speech will remain under attack here.
— Tom Fitton (@TomFitton) July 8, 2022
This article originally appeared on Abilene Reporter-News: Elon Musk backs out of Twitter deal and users tweet about spam