Musk to speak to Twitter employees about $44bn takeover

Elon Musk is to address Twitter employees directly this week, for the first time since agreeing to buy the social media platform in an increasingly fractious $44bn deal.

A spokesman for Twitter confirmed media reports that Musk would speak to all employees at a town hall meeting scheduled for Thursday.

Musk acquired a 9.2% stake in Twitter in April. He was initially offered a seat on the board, but rejected that and instead offered to buy the whole company for $44bn. The board agreed and recommended the deal to shareholders, who are expected to vote on the sale by early August.

Since then, however, the outspoken Tesla and SpaceX billionaire has threatened to walk away from the deal - despite facing a $1bn break fee - over a row about spam and fake accounts. Twitter believes around 5% of the social media platform’s accounts are fake, but Musk has disputed that and called for more detail on how Twitter calculates the figure.

Last week, his lawyers warned Twitter that it was committing a "material breach" of the agreed takeover by "actively resisting and thwarting" Musk’s rights to access data and information. Musk opted against carrying out due diligence before the deal was agreed.

Twitter has long maintained that while it will continue to co-operate with Musk, it also intends to close the deal "at the agreed price and terms".

The dispute is understood to have unnerved a number of Twitter employees. In April, chief executive Parag Agrawal was warned at a company-wide meeting that the firm faced a mass exodus when the takeover completed.