A Twitter shareholder is suing the company for misleading investors on growth prospects

A Twitter shareholder has filed a lawsuit in a US court against the microblogging site alleging that it misled investors about its prospects for growth, causing swings in the company’s stock price, a media report said. The suit, filed in a federal court in San Francisco on Friday, alleged that Twitter and its executives misled shareholders in November 2014 when they promised an increase in monthly active users to 550 million in the intermediate term and more than a billion over the longer term, CNET reported on Sunday. The company’s other optimistic statements about potential growth in February 2015 led its stock price to jump 17 percent in one day, the complaint noted. According to the lawsuit, Twitter, which has 313 million monthly users, reported flat user growth during the next quarter, causing a sharp decline in its stock price. Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, Biz Stone and Noah Glass. It was launched in July 2006. Twitter currently has over 310 active monthly users and revenue amounting to around $2.1 billion. Twitter’s IPO was introduced in 2013, but the company was already $400 million in debt at the time. Since that time, Twitter has acquired more than $2 billion in debt, losing $520 million in 2015 alone. With inputs from IANS