Twitter Sues Elon Musk to Prevent Him from Backing Out of Buyout Deal, Slams Billionaire’s Behavior

On Friday, Elon Musk ended his deal to buy the social media platform, citing a “breach of multiple provisions” of their original agreement

Twitter launched a lawsuit against billionaire Elon Musk on Tuesday to “compel” his completion of a $44 billion buyout of the company.

In court documents obtained by PEOPLE, Twitter claimed Musk acted in “bad faith” after reaching a deal to buy the social media platform earlier this year.

“In April 2022, Elon Musk entered into a binding merger agreement with Twitter, promising to use his best efforts to get the deal done,” Twitter said in the complaint, filed in the Delaware Court of Chancery on Tuesday. “Now, less than three months later, Musk refuses to honor his obligations to Twitter and its stockholders because the deal he signed no longer serves his personal interests,” it continued.

“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 company claimed.

Attorneys for the 51-year-old Tesla and SpaceX CEO did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.

The lawsuit comes just days after Musk ended his deal to buy the company, alleging that Twitter was in “breach of multiple provisions” of an original agreement.

Musk claimed that Twitter did not provide enough information about the number of fake accounts and bots on its network and didn’t give his team sufficient data to do their own investigation.

“Sometimes Twitter has ignored Mr. Musk’s requests, sometimes it has rejected them for reasons that appear to be unjustified, and sometimes it has claimed to comply while giving Mr. Musk incomplete or unusable information,” Musk’s representatives said in court documents obtained by PEOPLE on Friday.

In response to the claims, Twitter said it has “abided by its covenants” while Musk has “been acting against this deal since the market started turning.”

“[Musk] has purported to put the deal on ‘hold’ pending satisfaction of imaginary conditions, breached his financing efforts obligations in the process, violated his obligations to treat requests for consent reasonably and to provide information about financing status, violated his non-disparagement obligation, misused confidential information, and otherwise failed to employ required efforts to consummate the acquisition,” the company said in its complaint.

Twitter Chairman Bret Taylor announced the lawsuit in a tweet on Tuesday.

“Twitter has filed a lawsuit in the Delaware Court of Chancery to hold Elon Musk accountable to his contractual obligations,” said Taylor, who also serves as co-CEO of the cloud-based software company Salesforce.

Hours later, Musk appeared to allude to the lawsuit, writing “Oh the irony lol” in a tweet.

As of Tuesday afternoon, Twitter’s stock is valued at just over $34 per share, a drop from Musk’s $54.20 per share offer price in April.