Elon Musk launches a counterattack – Liberation

He would offer a duel early in the morning that we would barely bat an eyelid at. While Twitter has officially filed its complaint against him and a legal battle appears to be against him, Elon Musk is proposing a public debate. On his Twitter account (ironically), the billionaire platform boss Parag Agrawala calls for an open discussion on the difficult issue of fake accounts. The film was posted two days after he presented his arguments against the company in court, accusing it of “fraud”.

“If Twitter simply provides a method for selecting 100 accounts and how they are real, the deal should continue on the original terms.”, tweets. Otherwise, however “maybe not”. In his usual cheeky way, the Tesla boss also posted a poll of his nearly 100 million followers. “Less than 5% of daily Twitter users are fake/spam”, that is, an estimate repeated several times by the platform and criticized by the entrepreneur. The result: more than 65% of subscribers (out of 760,000 votes) answered negatively.

Why is Musk so obsessed with this topic? Not coincidentally: this is the argument at the heart of the defense strategy against Twitter. Recall that Tesla’s boss signed a $44 billion deal to buy the social network before unilaterally canceling the deal in early July, citing the rate of automated accounts and spam as reasons to eliminate it. According to him, the number higher than the first estimates will affect the viability of the company.

A month ago, he made a ridiculous acquittal for the platform’s lawyers, even though a “hypocrisy model”. In mid-July, the social network filed a lawsuit in Delaware Court of Chancery to compel the founder of SpaceX to buy the network on agreed terms. Elon Musk, who is determined to avoid the billions of damages he has to pay in case of defeat, filed a “confidential” complaint with the same court. His arguments came out on Thursday.

In the 165-page document, the lawyers accuse Twitter “hides the truth”, claims to have 238 million monetized daily users, but actually has 65 million less. Otherwise, “most ads” will only be broadcast “With less than 16 million users, some of the” What Twitter claims.

Appropriate complaint “misrepresentations” of the social network “sins”confirm this “Twitter (Elon Musk) frantically blocked the spread of information in a desperate attempt to avoid detection of fraud”. He is asking the court to release him from the contract and to pay Twitter damages.

Response from Twitter: Musk would be looking for more“escape” from the contract he made “It looks more interesting after the stock market falls”. Twitter’s shares had sunk to around $32 on July 11 amid a general slide in the stock market in recent months, a decline in social media ad revenue linked to economic conditions and public criticism of Elon Musk. It rose 3.56% to $42.52 on Friday. Tesla shares fell 6.63% to $864.51.

Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal has not yet responded “the call” Launched by Elon Musk. Whether or not there is a public hearing, the two sides will face each other in Delaware Court of Chancery starting October 17. And this is 5 days. In advance, Twitter shareholders will meet on September 13 to approve or disapprove the acquisition, which would represent a significant capital gain.