Elon Musk says he's terminating his 36 and a half billion pound bid to buy Twitter

Twitter’s taking the world's richest man to court

Dublin, Wednesday 31th October 2013: Pictured at the Web Summit 2013, RDS. Photo by Dan Taylor/Heisenberg Media

The world's richest man, Elon Musk, says he's terminating his 36 and a half billion pound bid to buy Twitter.

He has backed out of a 44 billion dollar deal to buy the company.

Musk claims Twitter hasn't given him the details he asked for on the number of spam accounts.

Tesla's chief executive also believes there have been multiple breaches of the merger agreement.

Shares of Twitter instantly fell by 6 per cent.

Elon Musk had threatened to halt the Twitter deal unless the company showed proof that spam and bot accounts were fewer than 5% of users who see advertising on the social media service.

Twitter's chairman says the social-media site will take legal action.

The firm insists it’s committed to the terms agreed, and it's now talking to lawyers.