Elon Musk accuses Twitter of fraud in countersuit

Elon Musk has accused the social media platform, Twitter, of fraudulently holding back information about the company as part of a countersuit.

The countersuit by the billionaire and Tesla CEO alleges that Twitter committed fraud, breach of contract, and violation of a securities law in Texas, where Musk lives.

Musk’s attorneys argue in the countersuit that Twitter “misrepresentations or omissions” distorted the company’s value and caused Musk to agree in April to buy it at an inflated price

They said Twitter’s own disclosures revealed that it has 65 million fewer “monetizable daily active users,” who can be shown digital ads, than the 238 million that Twitter claims.

Musk’s team also accused Twitter of making too many major changes in recent months without consulting Musk, including personnel decisions and allegedly disobeying social media restrictions imposed by the government of India, which is Twitter’s third largest market

Twitter called Musk’s reasoning “a story, imagined in an effort to escape a merger agreement that Musk no longer found attractive.” The company, in particular, took issue with Musk’s estimate of fake accounts, saying the analysis relied on a “generic web tool” that designated Musk’s own Twitter account as a likely bot.

“The result is a distortion that Musk is hoping will nonetheless make waves,” Twitter’s response said.