Twitter has fired back at Elon Musk’s attempt to cancel his $44 billion deal to buy the social media giant, calling the move "invalid and wrongful” and demanding he follow through.
"Twitter has breached none of its obligations under the Agreement," lawyers for the company wrote in a Monday filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), a federal agency tasked with ensuring business markets operate in a fair and orderly manner.
"Twitter demands that Mr. Musk and the other Musk Parties comply with their obligations under the Agreement, including their obligations to use their respective reasonable best efforts to consummate and make effective the transactions contemplated by the Agreement,” the letter continues.
On Friday, the billionaire industrialist told the SEC he wanted to withdraw from his bid to buy Twitter, claiming it was "in material breach of multiple provisions" of the April purchase agreement and "appears to have made false and misleading representations” about the number of automated accounts - also called bots - that operate on the site.
In its SEC filing, Twitter argued that the only party breaching the deal is Musk, which the company described as having been done "knowingly, intentionally, willfully, and materially."
According to the terms of the deal, Musk will have to pay a $1 billion fee for backing out.
Musk’s announcement sent Twitter’s stock into a tailspin, plunging by 11.3% of its value during Monday trading. Under the deal, Musk would have bought every share of the company’s stock at $54.20 each, but now it’s trading at just $32.65 a share. On Monday, Rosenblatt Securities analyst Barton Crockett told CNBC it could fall as low as $11 a share if the deal gets nixed.