ELON Musk has posted a viral meme targeting Twitter after walking away from his $44billion takeover bid.
The billionaire Tesla boss revealed plans to buy the app earlier this year – but abandoned the plot on Saturday.
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Musk, 51, blamed Twitter for misrepresenting itself, arguing that the app has too many spam accounts.
On Monday, Twitter threatened to legally enforce Musk’s buyout whether he likes it or not.
“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,” said Bret Taylor, the chairman of Twitter.
Now Musk has hit back with a meme mocking the plan to force his hand.
It features four pictures of a chuckling much, each with a harder laugh than the last.
And each picture has two sentences split into four quotes alongside the images: “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.”
Musk is making the point that the deal collapsed due to Twitter’s alleged reluctance to share the scale of bots on the app.
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And he’s saying that forcing Musk into court to battle over the buyout will only force Twitter to investigate and reveal spam account numbers.
The meme has been shared far and wide, racking up nearly 60,000 retweets and over 460,000 likes in a matter of hours.
But that’ll come as no surprise for viral Musk, who commands a vast audience of over 100million Twitter followers.
According to Musk, Twitter failed to provide enough info on spam accounts – and disclosed misrepresented numbers to America’s finance watchdog.
Twitter has estimated that around 5% of its accounts are spam bots
And it says that it removes around a million spam bot accounts each day.
Some bots are allowed on Twitter however, if they perform a useful service – rather than simply issuing spam posts.
For instance, a useful bot may release weather reports or earthquake warnings.
But Musk fears that the number of bots on Twitter is far higher than has been publicly revealed.
Musk madness
Musk isn’t the only one criticising the Twitter feud either.
Evan Williams replied to Twitter chairman Bret Taylor’s blasting the attempt to force Musk’s hand.
Williams is the former chairman and CEO of Twitter, founded Medium and Blogger, and has a net worth of $2.1billion.
Replying to Taylor, he wrote: “I’m sure there are legal/fiduciary reasons you have to say that, Bret.
“But if I was still on the board, I’d be asking if we can just let this whole ugly episode blow over.
“Hopefully that’s the plan and this is ceremony.”
There are hopes on Twitter’s side that a lawsuit in the Delaware Court of Chancery in the US could force Musk to pay a break fee.
This could see Twitter walk away with $1billion.
That’s a large sum, but still a fraction of Musk’s estimated $237.9billion net worth.
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This post first appeared on Thesun.co.uk
