Elon Musk dumps $44 billion Twitter buy out deal

Elon Musk has backed out of deal to buy social network giant, Twitter.

Mr Musk’s lawyers informed the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission that the Tesla chief executive would no longer be paying $44 billion to seal the deal.

Mr Musk’s lawyers stated in the SEC filings that Twitter was “in material breach of multiple provisions” of the merger deal signed months ago.

The breakdown comes three months after Mr Musk announced his intention to buy Twitter. The company’s shareholders, after initial squabbles, subsequently agreed to sell the platform.

For weeks, Mr Musk had alleged false claims in the number of users reported by Twitter, saying the accounting system was flawed and opaque. Twitter strongly denied the claims, saying only a manageable percentage of its user base had been found to be bots.

A spokesperson for Twitter did not immediately react to the announcement on Friday night.