Trump Responds After Elon Musk Moves to Pull Out of Twitter Deal

Donald Trump (L) and Elon Musk. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images; Theo Wargo/Getty Images for TIME)

Former President Donald Trump reacted to tech billionaire Elon Musk’s filing that seeks to pull out of the $44 billion deal to purchase Twitter, saying he knew it would happen.

Trump, who himself owns the Truth Social platform, told Breitbart News that “I knew that Twitter had a lot of the fake accounts because I read, like everyone else does.”

“I thought that the price was exorbitant,” Trump added of the sum to purchase the company, “the price he was paying for it was exorbitant.”

Last week, Musk issued a formal filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that moved to void his deal with Twitter’s board, claiming there are too many bots and automated accounts on the platform. But Twitter fired back and said it would try to enforce the deal and may possibly sue Musk.

The deal was sparked after Musk purchased a significant amount of Twitter’s shares and triggered speculation that Musk would enforce changes to the company’s content moderation policies. Musk has often criticized the firm for having a left-wing bias and targeting conservative accounts—and most recently when he targeted the firm for suspending psychologist Jordan Peterson.

“I called it early and said, ‘That deal is never going to happen,’” Trump said in the Breitbart interview. “We’re going to have to see what happens because they’re going to be saying, ‘You owe us $44 billion’ because I hear they have a very tight contract. It’s supposed to be ‘iron-clad,’ but I don’t know how you define ‘iron-clad.’ But it’s an ‘iron-clad’ contract, and he put up a billion-dollar deposit, so I see that ending up in a lot of litigation.”

After the development, the former commander-in-chief suggested it bodes well for his own social platform.

“Personally, I have something called Truth that you’re on,” he said. “It’s very successful. We have better interactions. It’s doing phenomenal, and it’ll be over five million people very soon, and we’ll be at ten million people in the not-too-distant future.”

Filing

On July 8, Musk’s filing argued that Twitter violated the contours of their agreement. And for two months, he said, Twitter has not provided him with the data he’s sought on spam or fake accounts.

“While Section 6.4 of the Merger Agreement requires Twitter to provide Mr. Musk and his advisers all data and information that Mr. Musk requests ‘for any reasonable business purpose related to the consummation of the transaction,’ Twitter has not complied with its contractual obligations,” reads Musk’s SEC filing.

The move is likely to trigger a lengthy—and costly—legal battle as Twitter’s Board of Directors chair Bret Taylor said the company will still pursue the deal with the world’s richest man.

“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. We are confident we will prevail in the Delaware Court of Chancery,” Taylor wrote in a statement posted to Twitter.