Twitter announced on Tuesday that it has sued Elon Musk to force him to complete the $44 billion acquisition of the social media company, The Associated Press reports.
The chair of Twitter's board, Bret Taylor, tweeted that the board has filed a lawsuit in the Delaware Court of Chancery "to hold Elon Musk accountable to his contractual obligations."
Twitter's lawsuit opens with a sharply-worded accusation that "Musk refuses to honor his obligations to Twitter and its stockholders because the deal he signed no longer serves his personal interests."
"Having mounted a public spectacle to put Twitter in play, and having proposed and then signed a seller-friendly merger agreement, Musk apparently believes that he – unlike every other party subject to Delaware contract law – is free to change his mind, trash the company, disrupt its operations, destroy stockholder value, and walk away," the suit says, according to AP.
The trial court in Delaware frequently handles business disputes among the many corporations, including Twitter, that are incorporated there.
Musk announced on Friday that he was backing out of a deal to buy Twitter for $44 billion, accusing the social media giant of failing to make good on a promise to give him access to information about spam accounts.
According to the New York Post, Musk’s legal team said in an FEC filing that Twitter had refused to reply to multiple requests from Musk for information on spam accounts. The number of accounts is crucial to the company’s net value.
The filing alleged that “Twitter is in material breach of multiple provisions of the buyout deal.”
On Monday, Twitter fired back at Musk and said his bid to terminate the acquisition of the social media company is “invalid and wrongful.”
Twitter attorney William Savitt, of the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, argued in a letter that “Twitter has breached none of its obligations under the Agreement.”