Elon Musk has withdrawn his $44 billion offer to purchase Twitter.
As reported by BBC News, the 51-year-old Tesla CEO has pulled of the deal to "buy 100% of Twitter", alleging multiple breaches of the agreement between the two parties.
In documents addressed to the social media company, per The Guardian, Musk's lawyers write: "Mr Musk is terminating the merger agreement because Twitter is in material breach of multiple provisions of that agreement, appears to have made false and misleading representations upon which Mr Musk relied when entering into the merger agreement, and is likely to suffer a Company Material Adverse Effect."
It comes after Musk accused the platform of lying about the number of spam/bot accounts currently active on the site. Last month, the billionaire tweeted: "Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users."
However, simply backing out of the deal could be a costly decision for Musk.
Per the 95-page acquisition agreement filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Musk could now have to prove that Twitter breached their original deal in order to avoid paying a $1 billion (£830m) break-up fee.
On Friday, BBC News reports that Twitter is not backing down from the deal, with the company's chair of the board Bret Taylor saying in a tweet: "The Twitter board is committed to closing the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon with Mr Musk and plans to pursue legal action to enforce the merger agreement."
It is now believed that Twitter will pursue legal action in order to enforce the agreement.
Musk originally made the eye-watering offer back in April - shortly after he took out a $2.89 billion stake in the company.
At the time, he said in a letter to Twitter Chairman Bret Taylor: "Since making my investment I now realize the company will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form. Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company."
The billionaire repeatedly touted that he believed Twitter has "extraordinary potential", and that he would be the one to "unlock it."
Many believed that Musk running Twitter would result in the platform being more accepting of what users could post.
For example, over the last few months, Musk stated that he disagreed with Donald Trump's Twitter ban following the January 6 Capitol riots, saying: "I do think it was not correct to ban Donald Trump. I think that was a mistake."
Sharing his thoughts while speaking at the Financial Times Future of the Car Summit, Musk added: "It alienated a large part of the country and did not ultimately result in Donald Trump not having a voice." He also stated that he would "reverse" Trump's ban if he took charge of the company.
Musk repeatedly shared his stance on "free speech", writing in his initial offer: "I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy."
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