Twitter says Musk’s latest attempt to scrap deal ‘invalid and wrongful’

(Reuters) -Twitter Inc said on Monday payments made to a whistleblower did not breach any terms of its $44 billion buyout by Elon Musk, after the world’s richest man made another attempt to scrap the deal.

In a letter to Twitter on Friday, lawyers for Musk said Twitter’s failure to seek his consent before paying $7.75 million to whistleblower Peiter Zatko and his lawyers violated the merger agreement, which restricts when Twitter could make such payments.

Twitter’s lawyers responded on Monday, saying Musk’s reasoning to back out of the deal is “invalid and wrongful”.

Shares of the social media company were down nearly 2% at $41.37, trading much lower than Musk’s offer price of $54.20.