Twitter taking Elon Musk to court over collapsed $44 bln deal

Twitter says it has committed to the terms as agreed

Tesla CEO Elon Musk. (Patrick Pleul/Pool via AP, File)

Twitter is exploring legal options after Elon Musk backed out of a 44 billion dollar deal. 

The firm insists it’s committed to the terms agreed, and it's now talking to lawyers.

Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk said on Friday he was terminating his $44 billion deal for Twitter, saying that the social media company had failed to provide information about fake accounts on the platform.

Shares of Twitter fell 6% in extended trading.

In a filing, Musk's lawyers said Twitter had failed or refused to respond to multiple requests for information on fake or spam accounts on the platform, which is fundamental to the company's business performance.

"Twitter is in material breach of multiple provisions of that Agreement, appears to have made false and misleading representations upon which Mr. Musk relied when entering into the Merger Agreement," the filing said.

The announcement is another twist in a will-he-won't-he saga after the world's richest person clinched a $44 billion deal for Twitter in April but then put the buyout on hold until the social media company proved that spam bots account for less than 5% of its total users.

The terms of the deal require Musk to pay a $1 billion break-up fee if he does not complete the transaction.

The decision is likely to result in a long protracted legal tussle between the billionaire and the 16-year-old San Francisco-based company.

Last month, Twitter allowed Musk access to its "firehose", a repository of raw data on hundreds of millions of daily tweets.

Twitter did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.