Elon Musk cancels bid to buy Twitter, Company to sue him to complete the deal

Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Friday announced that he was canceling plans to purchase social media giant Twitter, citing the company's failure to produce information on fake accounts while Twitter announced it would sue him to complete the deal.

Musk sent a letter to Twitter's board of directors on Friday announcing he would not acquire the company. He told the Securities and Exchange Commission that Twitter has “not complied with its contractual obligation," according to the Associated Press.

Twitter announced it would sue Musk to complete the 11-figure purchase and was "confident" the firm would succeed, the AP later reported.

Musk secured a deal to purchase the company for $44 billion in late April.

The world's richest man was repeatedly critical of the company's censorship policies, sparking speculation a Musk-run Twitter would reverse its practices. Musk confirmed he would reverse the permanent ban the company placed on former President Donald Trump.

The purchase itself faced several hurdles including SEC scrutiny, substantial employee concerns within Twitter, and objections from Musk himself over the company's handling of bot accounts.

In June, Twitter allowed Musk to view it's "firehouse" collection of raw data on the hundreds of millions of daily tweets, Reuters noted.

Company officials on Thursday said Twitter removes roughly 1 million spam accounts on a daily basis.