A Twitter investor is accusing Elon Musk of market manipulation. Here’s the latest development on the Twitter deal.
Latest update on the Twitter deal
Giuseppe Pampena, a Twitter investor sues Tesla CEO of market manipulation to get a better deal in the $44 billion takeover. Pampena stated Musk’s decision of going ahead with the purchase “essentially acknowledged that he had been bluffing all along about backing out of the deal”. The deal between the Tesla CEO and the social media platform was about to complete in April.
However, Elon Musk backed out at the last moment, blaming 20 percent of all users of the platform were bots. However, the claim is being dismissed by Twitter officials. Officials state the number of bots is around five percent. Twitter also provided the Tesla CEO with detailed insight and announced their wish to share more details if needed. Moreover last week, he backed out, making another U-turn before the Twitter deal. He decided to go ahead with the original evaluation of each share at $54.20.
More on the accusation
“Musk proceeded to make statements, send tweets, and engage in conduct designed to create doubt about the deal and drive Twitter’s stock down substantially in order to create leverage that Musk hoped to use to either back out of the purchase or re-negotiate the buyout price by as much as 25 percent which, if accomplished, would result in an $11 billion reduction in the buyout consideration,” wrote Pampena in his lawsuit. “Musk’s conduct was fraudulent and illegal,” he added.
Previously, the Tesla CEO has been sued at various points in the Twitter deal saga. However, the representatives of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP did not respond to comment on the matter. The firm is representing Musk in several legal matters including the Twitter deal.