Twitter is suing Elon Musk in an bid to force him to honour the deal to buy the social media company.
The lawsuit, filed on Tuesday, comes after Musk said in a letter to Twitter’s lawyers last week that he wants to terminate the $44 billion (R750bn) agreement.
Musk’s lawyer said Twitter was in “material breach of multiple provisions” of the deal, claiming the company withheld information about the number of bots and spam accounts on the platform.
Twitter’s legal team hit back on Monday, calling Tesla boss’ attempted termination “invalid and wrongful” and demanded he purses with the deal.
“In April 2022, Elon Musk entered into a binding merger agreement with Twitter, promising to use his best efforts to get the deal done,” their complaint states.
“Now, less than three months later, Musk refuses to honour his obligations to Twitter and its stockholders because the deal he signed no longer serves his personal interests.”
After news of the lawsuit broke, Musk tweeted, “Oh the irony lol.”
The deal is now likely headed for a lengthy court battle to determine whether Twitter can force Musk to close the deal and become its owner, or at least get him to pay the $1 billion set out for breaking the agreement.