Twitter, the social media giant with 330 million active users, was back online Thursday morning after reports of a global outage that came at a sensitive time for the company, which is embroiled in a heated legal battle with billionaire Elon Musk over the acquisition. †
Downdetector, a website that monitors internet disruptions, registered more 54,000 reports of disruptions on the social media platform around 8.15 am Dutch time. Less than an hour later, Twitter acknowledged in a tweet that it was trying to fix problems users had accessing the platform. “We are working on getting it back up and running for everyone,” the company said.
The service interruption is another headache for Twitter, which Mr. Musk sued in Delaware Chancery Court on Tuesday to force him to close a $44 billion deal for the company. Mr. Musk agreed to buy Twitter in April, but said last week that he planned to walk away from the purchase.
Mr Musk cited his concern about the number of fake accounts on Twitter as his justification for pulling out of the deal, saying he did not believe the company’s claims that about 5 percent of its active users are bots. For months, Mr. Musk has criticized Twitter and its executives on the platform, going so far as to tweet a poo emoji in response to a post from Parag Agrawal, the company’s CEO.
Shares of Twitter are down more than 28 percent since April 25, when Mr. Musk reached an agreement to buy the company for $54.20 a share. In comparison, the Nasdaq is down about 13.5 percent.
Twitter remains committed to keeping Mr. Musk from closing the deal and is aiming for a four-day trial in September.
“Musk is refusing to honor his obligations to Twitter and its shareholders because the deal he signed no longer serves his personal interests,” the company said in the lawsuit. “Musk apparently believes that—unlike any other party subject to Delaware contract law—he is free to change his mind, destroy the company, disrupt its operations, destroy shareholder value, and walk away.”
