San Francisco, Jul 11 (IANS): Twitter has hired a law firm that invented the shareholder rights plan or "poison pill" strategy to fight Elon Musk's decision to pull out from the $44 billion takeover deal.

The micro-blogging platform has reportedly hired Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, and a founding partner, Martin Lipton, credited with inventing "poison pill" defence, reports The Verge.

Musk is said to have hired Quinn Emanuel Urquhart and Sullivan law firm, which handled Samsung's defence against Apple's patent lawsuit.

The Rights Plan, often called the "poison pill", reduces the likelihood that any entity, person or group gains control of Twitter through open market accumulation without paying all shareholders an appropriate control premium or without providing the board sufficient time to make informed judgments and take actions that are in the best interests of shareholders, according to the announcement made on Friday.

The Rights Plan does not prevent the board from engaging with parties or accepting an acquisition proposal if the board believes that it is in the best interests of Twitter and its shareholders.

Last week, Twitter announced it was suing Musk for terminating the $44 billion takeover deal.

Musk's legal team said in a US Securities and Exchange (SEC) filing that he is terminating the deal because Twitter was in "material breach" of their agreement and had made "false and misleading" statements during negotiations.

Twitter Chairman Bret Taylor said that the "board is committed to closing the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon with Musk and plans to pursue legal action to enforce the merger agreement".

"We are confident we will prevail in the Delaware Court of Chancery," he added.

Musk had put the deal on hold over the actual number of spammy/fake accounts and bots on the platform, and sought a reply from Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal.