Twitter filed a forceful complaint against Elon Musk on Tuesday, alleging he had treated his $44bn offer for the social media company as an “elaborate joke”. With legal experts assessing Twitter’s arguments as strong, the joke could soon be on the billionaire entrepreneur.

The suit asks Delaware chancery court to force Musk to honour his agreement to buy the company, just days after he announced he was backing out, alleging Twitter had breached its obligations by not sharing sufficient information on fake accounts.

The complaint accuses him of “a long list of material contractual breaches?.?.?.?that have cast a pall over Twitter and its business”, including putting the deal on hold “pending satisfaction of imaginary conditions”, breaching financing obligations and misusing confidential information. He had also used Twitter’s own platform against it, with frequent jabs at Twitter and its leadership through his tweets, report Sujeet Indap and Hannah Murphy.