Tech Brief: Elon Musk Bails on Twitter Deal

Less than three months after agreeing to buy Twitter for US$ 44 billion, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced he no longer intends to go through with the acquisition. In a new filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Musk and his legal team claimed that "Twitter has not complied with its contractual obligations" and that the company was in "material breach" of their agreement and had made "false and misleading" statements during negotiations. The aborted purchase comes amid ongoing arguments over the prevalance of fake accounts, bots and spam on the social media platform. While Musk's team noted that "Twitter's figures on spam accounts are not verifiable," Twitter pointed out that it thwarts more than one million fake account signups each day. Despite the development, the company said it's still committed to closing the transaction on the price and terms previously agreed, adding it will "pursue legal action to enforce the merger agreement." It's also worth noting that Twitter's stock has slumped considerably in the intervening months, falling from an all-time-high of US$ 51.70 per share on April 25 to US$ 36.81 as of Friday's market close.