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Elon Musk has said his planned $44bn (£36bn) takeover of Twitter should go ahead if the company can confirm some details about how it measures whether user accounts are “spam bots” or real people.
The billionaire and Tesla CEO has been trying to back out of his April deal to buy the social media company, leading Twitter to sue him last month to close the deal.
Mr Musk countersued, accusing Twitter of misleading his team about the true size of its user base and other issues he said amounted to fraud and breach of contract.
Both sides will head to Delaware court for a trial in October.
“If Twitter just provides their method of sampling 100 accounts and how to confirm they are genuine, then the deal should be on the original terms,” Musk tweeted Saturday.
“However, if it turns out that their filing with the SEC is materially false, then it should not be done.”
Twitter declined to comment.
The company has repeatedly disclosed to the SEC that it estimates that less than 5% of user accounts are fake or spam, and states that it could be higher. Mr. Musk waived his right to further due diligence when he signed the merger agreement in April.
Twitter argued in court that Musk deliberately tried to block the deal because market conditions had deteriorated and the acquisition was no longer in his interest.
In a court filing on Thursday, it described his counterclaim as a fictional story that “contradicts evidence and common sense.”
“Musk fabricated statements that Twitter never made, and then attempted to selectively use the vast amount of confidential data that Twitter provided him to summon violations of those purported statements,” the company’s lawyers wrote.
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