Elon Musk is officially trying to pull the plug on the $44 billion deal to buy Twitter. In an SEC filing, Musk’s lawyers said the Tesla CEO wishes to terminate the agreement because of “false and misleading representations” made by Twitter.
Twitter and Musk have been squabbling for months over how the company counts the number of bots and fake accounts on the platform. In the letter filed with the SEC, Musk’s lawyers state that Twitter has both withheld information and misled Musk about the true numbers.
Twitter has long stated that fake accounts make up less than 5 percent of its total users, and it turned over some of its internal data to Musk to bolster those claims. In the SEC filing, Musk’s lawyers state that “it appears Twitter is dramatically understating” the number.
Twitter didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
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