Twitter on Tuesday vowed that it will enforce the terms of the agreement and price with Elon Musk despite all odds.
Twitter said it would not allow Elon Musk to wriggle free from his $44 billion offer for the social media platform despite the multibillionaire’s threats to walk away if the company doesn’t prove it is sufficiently cracking down on spam and bot accounts.
The San Francisco-based company filed a statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday morning — hours after Musk tweeted that he may not proceed with the deal.
“Twitter is committed to completing the transaction on the agreed price,” the company said in its SEC filing.
The Tesla and SpaceX boss agreed to pay $54.20 per share for the site on April 25 but has seen shares plunge by 30 percent, closing at $37.15 on Monday.
Musk faces a $1 billion breakup fee, plus the risk of hefty legal expenses from a breach-of-contract lawsuit if he scraps the deal.
Twitter has found itself on the defensive after Musk publicly trashed its policies on spam and bot accounts last week.
The company’s CEO; Parag Agrawal, took to Twitter on Monday to refute Musk’s claim that the social media site has allowed spam and bot accounts to run amok.
Spam “harms the experience for real people on Twitter,” he wrote, and the company is “strongly incentivized to detect and remove as much spam as we possibly can, every single day.”
“Anyone who suggests otherwise is just wrong,” tweeted Agrawal.
Musk appeared to be unimpressed, tweeting a poop emoji in response. He then commented: “So how do advertisers know what they’re getting for their money? This is fundamental to the financial health of Twitter.”
The company has admitted in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission that about 5 percent of its 300 million users are fake.
Musk demanded Agrawal show proof or “This deal cannot move forward until he does,” in a tweet early Tuesday.
He added: “20% fake/spam accounts, while 4 times what Twitter claims, could be *much* higher.”
Last week, Musk claimed there is “some chance” the actual number of fake accounts on Twitter “might be over 90% of daily active users.”