The deal between billionaire Elon Musk and Twitter was already full of plot plots and the announced acquisition gets a new sequel today. Musk accuses the company of withholding important information that would allow him to personally investigate the number of fake and spam accounts the platform has.

He’s even now threatening to cancel the deal. This is certainly not out of the question, although it is also taken into account that his real goal is to pay less for the acquisition, which is currently worth $44 billion.

Twitter says in a statement Bloomberg News said it “has and will continue to share information” with Musk and that it plans to complete the acquisition at the agreed-upon price. Twitter stock fell slightly on Wall Street.

private search

The latest developments have appeared by message To Twitter from the law firm representing Musk. The tech company was refusing to provide data on which Musk himself could investigate the amounts of spam and bot accounts. His lawyers said: “Musk has made it clear that he does not believe that lax research methods are sufficient and that he should do his own analysis.”

Musk is also now convinced that Twitter is “actively opposing and thwarting its information rights” as stipulated in the conclusion of the acquisition agreement. The billionaire sees this as a breach of contract, and therefore Musk “reserves the right” to stop the acquisition.

It’s not clear exactly what data Musk wants. It is also questionable whether he can perform the same analysis that Twitter has done for years.

Musk has previously expressed doubts about the way Twitter analyzes the percentage of fake or spam accounts. In mid-May, Musk put the deal unilaterally on “pause” for this reason, only to say shortly thereafter that he… still “dedicated” Take charge.

A few days after Musk’s “pause” tweet, Twitter chief Parag Agrawal explained: on his platform How does the company conduct research. According to Agrawal, about 5 percent of daily active users have a spam account. he is confirmed It is difficult for the outside world to perform the same analysis, because the data is only needed for Twitter. Musk’s reaction was with an expressive poo face†

Share the value down

It seems that Musk did not suddenly worry about the problem of bots. He cited this as the main driver of the deal. Matt Levine, an official Bloomberg columnist, wrote that Musk is likely keen to pay less for Twitter as stock prices have fallen so much recently. Last month† So does Tesla (where Musk gets most of his fortune) and Twitter.

The social media company is now worth just under $30 billion on the stock exchange. Less than a third of the billionaire was willing to pay it. Musk shares briefly touched $300 billion early this year and It now stands at $211 billion (making him the richest person in the world). At Tesla, he wants to lay off 10 percent of the staff and has, According to an email in the hands of Reuters news agency“bad feeling” about the state of the economy.

Today’s developments are making the situation around Twitter even more uncertain. The board will continue to do everything in its power to get the deal done, and may be talking behind the scenes about a lower takeover amount. However, there is also the possibility that this could mark the beginning of the end of one of the most famous deals ever made in technology.