The way the article stated the contract was that he had kind of agreed with their assessment of the number of bot accounts by agreeing to the deal, and that he didn't have legal recourse to then challenge their estimates afetr the fact.
As I said, i have no idea whether that was actually true or not.
Musk chose to waive the due diligence before signing the merger agreement. Dumb move
So, for all intents and purposes, he has to go through with the deal
Unfortunately, the tech industry went down after his offer. So right off the bat, his bid was bad market timing since he agreed to overpay. On top of that, tesla has gotten crushed. Those two reasons factor into his desire to bail or attempt to renegotiate a lower price
Unfortunately for him, he already agreed to a deal.
He can't just walk away and pay a billion. He can just prolong the merger, and twitter can sue him for up to a billion
So that's where we stand. Musk wants to back out, hut twitter wants it to go through since it will be a wealth transfer from Musk to twitter shareholders
Musk is trying to claim that the 5% bot statement in previous financial filings is wrong to the extent of a material adverse effect. But its not just about proving that 5% is wrong. It's about proving that the 5% misstatements is going to cause a material adverse effect on twitters price going forward. Something like that. Short version, thats very hard for him to prove
So Musk and twitter are playing hardball behind the scenes for now. Musk wants lower price. And twitter has right to sue for up to 1bn