Twitter Officially Sues Elon Musk For Backing Out Of Takeover

It’s officially happened. Following reports of Twitter engaging prominent New York law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz LLP to battle billionaire Elon Musk for backing out of the US$44 billion takeover, it’s been confirmed the social media network has filed a lawsuit. 

According to Mashable, the suit was filed in the Delaware Court of Chancery, which happens to specialize in business disputes of this magnitude. The news was broken by Twitter’s Board Chair, Bret Taylor, himself, who posted a link to the court documents. 

“Less than three months later, Musk refuses to honor his obligations to Twitter and its stockholders because the deal he signed no longer serves his personal interests,” alleges the platform, which submitted several of the mogul’s own tweets as evidence. 

“Having mounted a public spectacle to put Twitter in play, and having proposed and then signed a seller-friendly merger agreement, Musk apparently believes that he—unlike every other party subject to Delaware contract law—is free to change his mind, trap the company, disrupt its operations, destroy stockholder value, and walk away.” Oof. 

As per Bloomberg, one of the main points the network is refuting is that of the “so-called spam bots,” which the site said Musk was privy to all along. It said the request for more information was “absurd” and “unusual,” and despite the board’s best efforts to heed his requests, the Tesla CEO had skipped meetings and ignored briefings. 

💩

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 16, 2022

Of course, there’s also the incident in which the world’s richest man replied to Twitter CEO’s Parag Agrawal explanation with a poop emoji. Really. 

Plus, the company decided to include the numerous memes Musk tweeted following his public declaration of terminating the deal as proof that “his data requests were never intended to make progress toward consummating the merger, but rather were part of a plan to force litigation in which Twitter’s information would be publicly disclosed.” 

Naturally, Musk has since responded to the lawsuit with—guess what?—a tweet, saying: “Oh the irony lol.” 

Oh the irony lol

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 12, 2022

[via Mashable and Bloomberg, cover image via Rafael Henrique | Dreamstime.com]