Twitter dismisses Elon Musk's latest claim

Twitter has once again insisted its takeover by Elon Musk will go ahead, after the social media platform dismissed the Tesla billionaire’s latest attempt to walk away from the contentious deal.

Lawyers for Musk wrote to Twitter on Friday, arguing that payments made by the platform to a whistle blower violated the merger agreement, because Musk’s consent had not been sought beforehand.

But lawyers for Twitter responded on Monday, insisting that Musk's latest notice of termination was "invalid and wrongful".

They continued: "Twitter has breached none of its representations or obligations under the [merger] agreement, and following the receipt of Twitter’s stockholders at its 13 September special meeting, all of the conditions precedent to the closing of the merger will be satisfied.

"Twitter intends to enforce the agreement and close the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon with the Musk parties."

Twitter paid Peiter Zatko, its former head of security, severance pay of $7.75m after he was dismissed in January.

Zatko then went on to accuse the firm of "extreme, egregious deficiencies” relating to its handling of privacy, security and content moderation. He is due to appear before the US Senate Judiciary committee on Tuesday to discuss the allegations, the same day Twitter shareholders will vote on the merger.

Must, who also owns SpaceX, agreed in April to acquire Twitter for $44bn. At the time he waivered his right to due diligence, but since then has disputed the number of fake or spam accounts on Twitter, with his estimates far outstripping Twitter’s.

In July he announced he was walking away from the deal, arguing that Twitter had failed to disclose how they measure fake accounts. In response, Twitter launched legal action to ensure the deal goes ahead. The trial is scheduled to begin next month.

The letter sent last week was Musk’s third attempt to call off the deal.