"Musk's May 13 tweet-"Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users"-was "false because the buyout was not, in fact, 'temporarily on hold,'" the lawsuit says. That's because Twitter did not agree to put the deal on hold, and there was nothing in the merger agreement the two parties signed that allowed Musk to put it on hold."
"The lawsuit was filed in October 2022 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on behalf of Twitter shareholders who sold the stock between May 13 and Oct. 4, 2022, a few weeks before Musk's purchase of Twitter was finalized. It claims Musk violated federal securities laws by making false, public statements that "were carefully calculated to drive down the price of Twitter stock.""
"The billionaire Tesla CEO reached a deal to buy Twitter and take it private in April 2022. On May 13, however, he declared his plan "temporarily on hold" and said he needs to pinpoint the number of spam and fake accounts on the platform. Twitter's stock tumbled as a result. A few days later, he tweeted that the deal "cannot go forward" and claimed that almost 20% of Twitter accounts were "fake.""
Elon Musk is testifying in a shareholder lawsuit filed in October 2022 by Twitter stockholders who sold shares between May and October 2022. The plaintiffs claim Musk violated federal securities laws by making false public statements designed to reduce Twitter's stock price. After agreeing to buy Twitter in April 2022, Musk announced in May that the deal was "temporarily on hold" pending verification of fake account numbers, causing stock to tumble. He subsequently claimed nearly 20% of accounts were fake. The lawsuit argues these statements were false because the merger agreement contained no provision allowing Musk to halt the deal unilaterally. Musk continued making disparaging claims about Twitter's business throughout the following weeks, allegedly to delay or exit the acquisition.
Read at Fast Company
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