The choice was taken during a brief conference call that the company’s San Francisco headquarters held with investors. This indicates that Twitter will now pursue legal action to compel Elon Musk to acquire the business. The conference came after Peiter Zatko, the former chief of security at Twitter, gave shocking testimony before the US Senate. Twitter and Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, reached an agreement in April to sell the firm. The agreement soured, however, because Mr. Musk claimed Twitter misled him about the volume of spam and bot accounts using the service.
He said he no longer wished to purchase the company in May, but Twitter argues that Mr Musk cannot back out of the deal.
The social media platform says that fewer than 5% of its monetizable daily active users (those who are able to look at adverts) are bots. Mr Musk argues it could be many times higher.
Twitter is currently valued at $32bn, considerably below the $44bn offer from Mr Musk.
Today’s vote could have spelled the end of Twitter’s legal pursuit, but shareholders have now given the company the green light to pursue Mr Musk in court.
The two are set to meet in front of a Delaware state court in October. During the hearing a judge will decide whether or not Mr Musk has to buy the company.
Just before the shareholder decision, Twitter whistle-blower Pieter Zatko was in Washington testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee about alleged security flaws.
The firm’s former head of security went on to say that Twitter was “a decade behind” security standards. Twitter says Mr Zatko was fired from his job, and that the claims are inaccurate.
Mr Zatko has previously supported Elon Musk’s claim that the platform has more spam and fake accounts than it has admitted – though he didn’t elaborate on this on Tuesday.
Last week, a judge said that Mr Musk’s lawyers would be allowed to use the Twitter whistle-blower’s testimony in court.
It largely focussed on national security issues – and is not officially connected with Mr Musk’s attempt to pull out of the deal to buy Twitter.
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