Twitter shareholders sued Elon Musk, aspiring to acquire the firm, whom they accuse of having manipulated the market to save on the purchase of the social network.
According to documents filed in a California court on Wednesday, the plaintiffs allege the Tesla founder of having delayed the moment in which he revealed to have entered the capital of Twitter, a legal obligation from certain levels of participation.
The billionaire -according to the lawsuit- would thus have saved 156 million dollars, since -he affirms- if he had informed the market at the correct times, he would have paid more for a part of the shares.
"By delaying the publication of his stake amount on Twitter, Musk manipulated the market and bought parts (of the firm) at an artificially low price"argue the investors’ lawyers.
Since the beginning of April, the value of the social network on the stock market has fluctuated to the rhythm of official information and Musk’s tweets.
When he announced that he owned more than 9% of Twitter’s capital on April 4, the stock soared 25%.
He had to integrate the company’s directory, which in the end he did not do. He then announced his intention to buy the entire San Francisco-based group for $44 billion.
The company’s board objected, but then relented. Musk said that he would suspend the operation, but finally went ahead with the plan to buy him.
"Musk made statements, tweeted and took other actions designed to cast doubt and drive down Twitter’s stock substantially to give himself some wiggle room he hoped to use to back out of the deal or renegotiate the price."they denounce.
The lawyers recalled that part of the financing of the operation was based on loans attached to the shares of Tesla, its flagship company, which lost a lot of value after their plans with Twitter were known.
But, in that plane the novelties also abounded in the last hours.
Twitter was precisely one of the values sought on Wall Street this Thursday (+6.35% to 39.52 dollars), after the announcement, on Wednesday, that Musk increased the direct contribution of capital to buy the social network, to a total of $33.5 billion, up from $21 billion at the start.
Musk thus renounced a credit for 12.5 billion dollars guaranteed with Tesla shares that he planned to contract, which also boosted the shares of his electric car manufacturing company (+7.43% to 707.73 dollars).
Musk intends to delist Twitter by closing the deal.