SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - Twitter on Thursday (Aug 4) said the notion that billionaire Elon Musk was “hoodwinked” into inking a US$44 billion (S$60.6 billion) buyout deal defies reason and the facts.
In a filing, Twitter rejected counter claims made by Mr Musk as he fights to walk away from the deal that he inked in April to buy the company.
“According to Musk, he - the billionaire founder of multiple companies, advised by Wall Street bankers and lawyers - was hoodwinked by Twitter into signing a US$44 billion merger agreement,” Twitter said.
“That story is as implausible and contrary to fact as it sounds.”
Mr Musk last week filed a countersuit along with a legal defence against Twitter’s claim that he is contractually bound to complete the takeover deal.
“The counterclaims are a made-for-litigation tale that is contradicted by the evidence and common sense,” Twitter argued in the filing.
A five-day trial that will consider Twitter’s lawsuit against Mr Musk has been scheduled for Oct 17.
The Tesla boss wooed Twitter’s board with an offer of US$54.20 per share, but then in July announced that he was ending their agreement because the firm had misled him regarding its tally of fake and spam accounts.
Twitter, whose stock price closed at US$41.06 on Thursday, has stuck by its estimates that less than 5 per cent of the activity on the platform is due to software “bots” rather than people.
Twitter told the court that Mr Musk’s claim that the false account figure tops 10 per cent is “untenable”.
The company also disputed Mr Musk’s assertion that he has the right to walk away from the deal if Twitter’s bot count is found to be wrong since he did not ask anything about bots when he made the buyout offer.
“Mr Musk forwent all due diligence - giving Twitter 24 hours to accept his take-it-or-leave-it offer before he would present it directly to Twitter’s stockholders,” the filing said.
The company accused Mr Musk of contriving a story to escape a merger agreement that he no longer found attractive.
“Twitter has complied in every respect with the merger agreement,” the company said in the filing made in the state of Delaware.
“Mr Musk’s counterclaims, based as they are on distortion, misrepresentation and outright deception, change nothing.”
The social media platform has urged shareholders to endorse the deal, setting a vote on the merger for Sept 13.
Billions of dollars are at stake, but so is the future of Twitter, which Mr Musk has said should allow any legal speech - an absolutist position that has sparked fears the network could be used to incite violence.
