Tesla and SpaceX owner Elon Musk has filed a counterclaim against Twitter, which is suing him to complete the deal to buy the company. This was reported by CNBC on Friday, July 29th.

Musk asked the court not to release the details of his lawsuit, but as noted by CNBC, they will be available to the public in an edited form soon. Before this billionaire publicly criticized Twitter for refusing to provide data on the number of spam and bots registered on the social network, which is important to understand the advertising audience and the business potential of the site.

Musk and Twitter controversy

In late April of this year, Musk announced he was buying 100% of Twitter’s shares for $44 billion, but pulled out of the deal in early July, explaining this by refusing to provide the necessary information.

Musk’s lawyers said in a letter to the company that they “have reason to believe” that the actual number of fake Twitter accounts and spam is significantly higher than the social network’s reported “less than five percent”. In this context, Twitter’s shares fell by about 6%.

In response, the owners of Twitter accused the billionaire of refusing to fulfill obligations with the platform and its shareholders and demanded in court that the businessman conclude the deal. The company felt that Musk refuses to fulfill his obligations due to the fact that the business no longer serves his personal interests.

“Musk’s behavior clearly confirms that he is trying to get rid of the binding contract he voluntarily signed and that he is trying to harm Twitter in the process,” the company said.

According to the terms of the agreement, if one of the parties withdraws from the agreement, a fine of up to one billion dollars is foreseen, notes AFP. The company asked the court to schedule a four-day trial for mid-September. The Delaware court has scheduled the process to begin on October 17.