Glamsquad reports that Twitter has sued Elon Musk, accusing him of breaching his $44 billion agreement to purchase the social media platform.
READ ALSO: Elon Musk mocks Twitter after it hired law firm to sue him for pulling out of $44 bn takeover deal
According to a court filing, Twitter filed the suit in Delaware chancery court on Tuesday, July 12, seeking a ruling that would order Musk to complete the merger at the agreed-upon price of $54.20 per Twitter share.
Musk refuses to fulfill his obligations to Twitter and its shareholders because the agreement he signed no longer serves his personal interests,’ according to the lawsuit.
Musk announced last Friday that he was terminating the agreement because Twitter violated it by failing to respond to requests for information about fake or spam accounts on the platform, which is critical to its business performance.
On Tuesday evening, the billionaire appeared to respond to the suit in a tweet, writing, ‘Oh the irony lol.’
‘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, trash the company, disrupt its operations, destroy stockholder value, and walk away,’ according to Twitter’s lawsuit.
On Tuesday afternoon, Twitter’s General Counsel, Sean Edgett, issued a company-wide memo informing employees of the lawsuit.
According to the New York Times, Edgett wrote in the memo, “We have also filed a motion for an expedited trial alongside the complaint, asking for the case to be heard in September, as it is critically important for this matter to be resolved quickly.”
At this point, we anticipate that the court will set a schedule for the case as the next step in the process,’ he added.
The lawsuit was widely anticipated after Musk announced last week his intention to withdraw from the April 25 merger agreement, which stipulated penalties for exiting the deal.
Among the penalties were a $1 billion breakup fee and the ability for the parties to enforce the contract in court, which Twitter officials had previously promised to do.
Musk claims that Twitter violated its contractual obligations by failing to disclose critical information about fake accounts on the platform.
Because both Twitter and the company Musk is using to complete the merger are officially incorporated in Delaware, the lawsuit will be heard in Delaware chancery court.
The lawsuit accused Musk of a “long list” of merger agreement violations that “cast a pall over Twitter and its business.”
Shares of the social media platform closed at $34.06 on Tuesday, down from levels above $50 when the deal was approved by Twitter’s board in late April.
Musk said he was canceling the merger due to a lack of information about spam accounts and inaccurate representations, which he called a “material adverse event.”
He also claimed that executive departures amounted to a failure to conduct business as usual, as Twitter was required to do.
Twitter stated that it negotiated to have language in the merger agreement removed that would have made such firings a violation of the ordinary course requirement.
Twitter called Musk’s reasons a “pretext” that lacked merit, and said his decision to leave had more to do with the stock market’s decline, particularly in tech stocks.
Musk has continued to target Twitter, tweeting a series of memes that mock the company for attempting to enforce the agreement.