Elon Musk threatens to pull out of Twitter deal without more information about fake accounts.

If the company doesn't give more information about how it calculates the number of fake accounts, Musk will pull out of the acquisition.

Lawyers at the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom argued in a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission that Mr. Musk was being denied his right to free speech. His lawyers said that Mr. Musk had the right to break off the agreement because of the clear material violation.

The letter said that Mr. Musk had made it clear that he doesn't believe the company's testing methodologies are adequate so he needs to conduct his own analysis. The debt financing that banks have committed to fund the deal is dependent on the cooperation of the social networking site.

The letter said that the reply from Mr. Musk's team wastantamount to refusing Mr. Musk's data requests.

Mr. Musk has threatened to put the deal on hold over the number of fake accounts. He said last month that the deal couldn't move forward until there was proof that only 5 percent of users are bots. He made a similar remark at a conference in Miami.

In doing so, Mr. Musk appeared to be laying the groundwork for an argument that would allow him to walk away from the deal. Lawyers have questioned the merits of that argument since it has been known for a long time that fake accounts make up a small percentage of users. The letter on Monday was a new strategy.

He is attempting to get out of the merger agreement. If the information requests were necessary or reasonable for Musk to be able to get his financing, then that would be a betrayal that would allow Musk to walk away.

She said that the company could argue that it doesn't have the information that Mr. Musk is asking for.

The deal is expected to close by the end of October. Either side can leave if it doesn't close by then.

If the transaction isn't approved by that time, Mr. Musk will have another six months to complete it.

The price that Mr. Musk agreed to pay for a controlling stake in the company was far below the stock price at the time.