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“So What?”:  Twitter Resists Merger Agreement Termination by Invoking Musk’s Unclean Hands

September 18, 2022

Elon Musk has lobbed in two additional termination letters since his original July 8 letter seeking to terminate his agreement to acquire Twitter for $44 billion.  Each termination letter cites alleged false representations and blown covenants by Twitter in the merger agreement, purportedly justifying termination.  Twitter’s response to each letter has been the equivalent of saying: “So what?”.

Musk’s first termination letter alleged that Twitter overstated the number of its monetizable users, understated the percentage of users that are fake accounts or bots and failed to provide information Musk needs to complete the transaction or to secure financing.

Musk’s second termination letter was sent after the Washington Post published a whistleblower report to Congress, the SEC, the FTC and the DOJ filed by Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, Twitter’s former chief security officer, on July 6, 2022.  The second letter asserts that the allegations in the whistleblower report, if true, would demonstrate Twitter violated several provisions of the merger agreement.  The allegations include that Twitter has been violating an FTC consent decree requiring the company to maintain a comprehensive information security plan (purported breach of the representation that Twitter is in compliance with applicable laws), that it failed to disclose in SEC documents the significant privacy, data protection, safety and cybersecurity risks Mr. Zatko alerted the board to (purported breach of the representation that Twitter’s SEC filings were truthful), that Twitter’s CEO presented false information to the board to cover up vulnerabilities in Twitter’s security and data protection infrastructure (purported breach of the representation regarding disclosure controls and procedures), that Twitter is facing multiple regulatory investigations relating to privacy and cybersecurity (purported breach of the representation that there are no threatened lawsuits that would constitute a material adverse effect), and that Twitter never acquired the rights to its core machine learning models (purported violation of the representation that Twitter was not infringing on anyone else’s intellectual property).

The third termination letter, dated September 9, 2022, asserts that Twitter’s $7.75 million severance payment to Mr. Zatko (the whistleblower) violated Twitter’s merger agreement covenant not to make any severance payments prior to closing other than in the ordinary course of business and consistent with past practice, in each case without Musk’s consent.

Normally, you don’t get to pile on to a previously delivered termination letter by sending subsequent letters with additional or alternative allegations.  Musk is maintaining in his second and third termination letters, however, that new facts have come to light since the previous termination letter(s) (i.e., the whistleblower allegations and severance payment) that provide additional and distinct bases to terminate the merger agreement.

Twitter’s responses to the second and third termination letters begin with a perfunctory denial of the allegations that it is in breach of the merger agreement.  But the thrust of its response to each of the letters is the same:  that the purported termination by Musk is invalid because (even if the allegations about Twitter are true) Musk himself has violated numerous obligations under the merger agreement, which serves to contractually prevent him from terminating the agreement.  Under Section 8.1(d) of the merger agreement, Musk’s right to terminate over a breach by Twitter of any representation or covenant is conditioned on one major requirement: that Musk himself not be in material breach of any of his representations, warranties or covenants in the agreement.

And what obligations does Twitter allege Musk breached?  First, his obligation to use reasonable best efforts to complete the merger.  Second, his “hell-or-high-water” covenant requiring him to do all things necessary to consummate and finalize the acquisition financing.  Third, to provide Twitter with information regarding the status of debt financing.  Fourth, to refrain from unreasonably withholding consent to operational decisions (e.g., by unreasonably withholding consent for employee retention programs).  Fifth, to seek Twitter’s consent for public comments about the deal.  Sixth, to refrain from disparaging Twitter or its representatives in tweets about the merger.  And finally, not to misuse Twitter’s confidential information.

It will be interesting to see how all this plays out in the trial, expected to begin October 17.  Although Chancellor McCormick denied Musk’s motion to delay the start date, she did allow him to add the whistleblower claims to his countersuit.  There will be a lot of arguing about whether any of the allegations by Musk constitute misrepresentations by Twitter and if so whether any such misrepresented matters would have a material adverse effect on the company.  His best shot would seem to be the $7.7 million severance payment to Mr. Zatko if Musk could prove it was not in the ordinary course of business or consistent with past practice.  That would be a covenant breach, and unlike representation breaches, he would not need to also prove material adverse effect.  In any event, Twitter will then invoke the unclean hands provision of Section 8.1(d) by seeking to establish that Musk himself is in violation of his own covenants, which seemingly would deny Musk the ability to terminate over any Twitter breach.