Shares can be manipulated

A Twitter investor sued entrepreneur Elon Musk, accusing him of manipulating the share price of the social network. This was reported by Bloomberg agency on Tuesday.

Investor Giuseppe Pampena is convinced that the Tesla CEO, when he agreed in early October to renew his acquisition of Twitter, "essentially admitted to bluffing all along" by announcing he was pulling out of the deal. Musk's "fraudulent and illegal actions" collapsed the social network's stock, hurting the company's investors while improving the American billionaire's bargaining position, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court in San Francisco.

In April, Twitter's management announced that Musk had offered to buy the social network for $44 billion. In early July, Musk's lawyers notified the company that he refused to buy because he had not received proof that fake accounts account for less than 5% of the total number of accounts in the social network.

After that, Musk "continued to make statements, publish tweets, and provoke suspicion around the deal, significantly lowering Twitter's stock price to create leverage with which to either exit the deal or renegotiate the price by 25%, which is a $11 billion reduction," the agency cites an excerpt from the lawsuit.

On Oct. 4, Bloomberg reported that Elon Musk had decided to reopen the deal and acquire Twitter at the original price. On the same day, a representative of the social network confirmed receipt of a corresponding offer letter from Musk.

It is also worth noting that Elon Musk has previously sued at various points along the way for a Twitter buyout.

Representatives for Quinn Emanuel Urquhart and Sullivan LLP, the law firm that represents Musk in several legal matters, including the Twitter buyout, did not immediately respond after hours to a request for comment.