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In this photo illustration, Twitter account of Elon Musk is seen on a smartphone screen and Twitter logo in the background.
Pavlo Gonchar | Lightrocket | Getty Images
Twitter shares sank sharply in early premarket trade Monday after Elon Musk said he is trying to terminate his $44 billion takeover of the company.
Shares of the company fell nearly 9% in U.S. premarkets before paring some losses to trade 7% lower. Tesla stock, meanwhile, was up around 1% in premarket trade.
On Friday, Musk’s attorney notified Twitter’s board that he wants to cancel the deal. The billionaire has taken issue with the number of bots and fake accounts on Twitter and says the company isn’t being truthful about how much activity on the service is authentic.
Twitter, on the other hand, says it has given Musk the information he needs to assess its claim that spam accounts make up only 5% of monetizable daily active users, including its so-called “firehose,” an unfiltered, real-time stream of daily tweets.
Bret Taylor, Twitter’s board chair, said the company would pursue legal action in the Delaware Court of Chancery to enforce the agreement.
Musk responded Monday by posting a meme mocking Twitter management over the botched deal. The meme features images of Musk laughing more aggressively with each sentence.
“They said I couldn’t buy Twitter. Then they wouldn’t disclose bot info. Now they want to force me to buy Twitter in court. Now they have to disclose bot info in court,” the meme read.
Twitter was not immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC.
Musk is one of Twitter’s most popular users, with over 100 million followers. He’s used the social media site for everything from corporate communications for his companies to bashing the very platform he previously wanted to acquire.
Richard Windsor, founder of research company Radio Free Mobile, said he’s not a Twitter shareholder but if he was, he’d sell now.
“There is still a disconnect between the fundamentals and the share price,” Windsor told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” Monday.
“If you look at some of where the technology sector has gone over the last couple of months, you could put Twitter’s valuation somewhere between $13 [billion] to $15 billion which is around about roughly 50% below even where the share price is today.”
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