SAN FRANCISCO - Twitter shareholders have filed a lawsuit accusing Elon Musk of engaged in "unlawful conduct" aimed at sowing doubt about his bid to buy the social media company.The lawsuit filed late Wednesday in the U.S.
District Court for the Northern District of California claims the billionaire Tesla CEO has sought to drive down Twitter’s stock price because he wants to walk away from the deal or negotiate a substantially lower purchase price.San Francisco-based Twitter is also named as a defendant in the lawsuit, which seeks class action status as well as compensation for damages.A representative for Musk did not immediately respond to a message for comment on Thursday.
Twitter declined to comment.Musk last month offered to buy Twitter for $44 billion, but later said the deal can’t go forward until the company provides information about how many accounts on the platform are spam or bots.Twitter battles back with "poison pill" plan to offer more shares at a discount in attemp to fend off Elon Musk takeover bid.The lawsuit notes, however, that Musk waived due diligence for his "take it or leave it" offer to buy Twitter.
That means he waived his right to look at the company’s non-public finances.In addition, the problem of bots and fake accounts on Twitter is nothing new.