Twitter sues to force Musk to complete his $44B acquisition of the platform

Twitter said Tuesday it has sued Elon Musk to force him to complete the $44 billion acquisition of the social media company.

Musk and Twitter have been bracing for a legal fight since the billionaire said Friday he was backing off of his April agreement to buy the company.

According to the buyout agreement, Musk must pay a $1 billion fee if the deal collapses, but a court also has the power to force him to go through with the purchase. 

Twitter's complaint says that Musk has been "a model of bad faith" since he first proposed to take the company private in April, and accuses him of abruptly changing his mind as the stock market — and his personal fortune — declined. 

"Rather than bear the cost of the market downturn, as the merger agreement requires, Musk wants to shift it to Twitter's stockholders," the complaint said.

The lawsuit accuses Musk of hypocrisy, saying he knew about bots on Twitter well before his purchase — having tweeted and complained about the issue frequently — but only decided to make it an issue in the acquisition once the stock market dropped.

"Musk has been working furiously — albeit fruitlessly — to try to show that the company he promised to buy and not disparage has made material misrepresentations about its business to regulators and investors," according to the complaint.

The suit also accuses Musk of breaching multiple nondisclosure agreements, trash-talking Twitter to further lower its stock price and breaking several financing obligations.

It asks the court to force Musk to complete the buyout. 

This is a developing story. The Associated Press contributed reporting.