Twitter takes aim at Musk deal for poor results

Twitter has missed its expected earnings, partially blaming the disappointing financial results on Elon Musk’s botched takeover of the social media network.

The world’s richest man said he was pulling out of a deal this month to buy the tech firm for $44bn (£36.6bn), and the company is suing him to try to force him to carry out his earlier promise in April to acquire it.

A showdown court date is set for October, with an £830m termination bill for Mr Musk on the line.

Twitter was pushing for the court case to be heard in September because it said the ongoing dispute was hurting its business.

In its financial results for the second quarter, Twitter said that “uncertainty” surrounding the deal had led to a surprise drop in revenue after rattling advertisers and causing confusion and concern among employees.

The social network also blamed advertising industry headwinds for the slowdown.

The company said it had spent £27m on the attempted takeover already, in a period when Twitter reported a net loss of £224m, lower than was expected.

Analysts had expected revenue of $1.32bn, representing 10.5% growth year-over-year.

Instead, Twitter’s revenue fell by 1%, representing the company’s worst revenue miss ever, with results 11% lower than estimates, according to data from Refinitiv.

Meanwhile, the number of Twitter’s daily users rose in the second quarter to 237 million.

Mr Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX boss, had pledged to pay $54.20 a share for Twitter, but told the company in July he wanted to back out of the agreement.

“It’s attempted sabotage. He’s doing his best to run Twitter down,” said William Savitt, a lawyer for the social media company.

The tycoon claims the firm failed to provide him with enough information concerning the number of fake – spam bot – Twitter accounts.

And he says it breached its obligations by sacking top managers and laying off a significant number of workers.

Musk’s team expects more information about the bot numbers to come out in the trial court discovery process, when both sides must hand over evidence.

Twitter argues Musk is trying to back out because he agreed to pay 38% above Twitter’s stock price just before the stock market fell.

And shares of electric car maker Tesla, where most of his personal wealth is, lost more than $100bn of their value.