Elon Musk threatens to scrap $44bn Twitter deal over ‘material breach’

Company accused of refusing to provide sufficient information about number of false users

Elon Musk has accused Twitter of committing a material breach" of his $44bn (35bn) agreement to buy the company and has threatened to terminate the deal, in the clearest indication yet that the world's richest man is preparing to walk away from the takeover.

Musk's lawyers have written to Twitter accusing it of refusing to provide sufficient information about the number of false users on the service, as part of a simmering dispute over the number of spam and fake accounts that populate the platform.