Musk countersues Twitter, alleging the company has distorted user numbers and value

Elon Musk is countersuing Twitter over his scrubbed $44 billion deal, claiming that the social media company withheld critical information and provided misleading data about the actual size of its user base.

This countersuit, filed in Delaware Chancery Court last week and unsealed August 4, alleges that Twitter's statements in its SEC disclosures "were far from true. Instead, they contain numerous, material misrepresentations or omissions that distort Twitter's value and caused the Musk Parties to agree to acquire the company at an inflated price."

Musk's legal claim in the countersuit is that Twitter sought to "run out the clock" before Musk's team could determine what he was actually buying and that the Twitter claim of nearly 238 million monetizable daily active users (MDAU) relies upon a "miscounting" of the number of false and spam accounts on its platform. It also alleges that the notion that Twitter's MDAU is a "key metric" for revenue growth is "not as closely tied to revenue as Twitter leads the public to believe."