“Twitter stands ready and willing to complete the merger with Mr. Musk’s affiliates immediately, and in any event, no later than September 15, 2022, the second business day following the satisfaction of all conditions precedent, which is the time required by the merger agreement.”
In the letter, Musk’s lawyers claimed the payment – which was allegedly made to Zatko and his attorneys on June 28 as part of a separation agreement – violated a provision of the acquisition agreement. . Twitter agreed not to pay severance payments to employees for amounts outside the “ordinary course of business consistent with past practices,” according to the contract.
Musk first sent a letter to end the deal in July, alleging Twitter violated the agreement by misrepresenting the number of spam and fake bot accounts on its platform. Twitter sued Musk to complete the acquisition, accusing the billionaire of using bots as a pretext to get out of a deal he developed buyer’s remorse for following a market downturn.
The case between Musk and Twitter is set to go to trial on October 17.
— Clare Duffy of CNN Business contributed to this report