Twitter is really not having Elon Musk’s attempt to back out of buying it – TechCrunch

Twitter is not on the same page as Elon Musk when it comes to his newly official attempt to back out of his proposed $44 billion acquisition of the company. The company issued a brief formal statement regarding Musk’s merger termination attempt, which relies on the prodigious breeder‘s assertion that Twitter misled him about the extent of its bot problem when he entered into the deal.

Twitter’s single paragraph, two sentence response read as follows:

We are committed to closing the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon with Mr. Musk and plan to pursue legal action to enforce the merger agreement. We are confident we will prevail in the Delaware Court of Chancery.

The statement pretty much exactly mirrors a tweet sent out by Twitter board chair and Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor, so it’s clear the approach is one Twitter likely prepared in advance and had ready for this moment. They’ll probably do the rest of their talking either behind closed doors in a negotiating room with Elon or in court filings with the Delaware Court of Chancery.

Musk seems to be intent on pressing the bots issue and has repeatedly brought it up prior to now, but it’s also possible this is some variety of “negotiating in public,” since the share price and therefore market value of Twitter has declined considerably since the billionaire first announced his intent to acquire the social network in April.

Be sure to read more about Musk’s side of the story in Taylor’s article, and stay tuned for more developments in this (unfortunately) never-ending saga.