Part of Elon Musk’s Twitter page is seen on a computer screen in Sausalito, California, in April.
Eric Risberg / AP
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Eric Risberg / AP
Part of Elon Musk’s Twitter page is seen on a computer screen in Sausalito, California, in April.
Eric Risberg / AP
LONDON – Tesla CEO Elon Musk said Twitter purchase agreement cannot proceed unless the company provides public proof that less than 5% of accounts on the social media platform are fake or spam.
Musk made the comment in a reply to another user on Twitter early Tuesday. He spent most of the previous day chatting back and forth with Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, who posted a series of tweets explaining his company’s efforts to combat bots and how it always It is estimated that less than 5% of Twitter accounts are fake.
In his tweet on TuesdayMusk said that “20% of fake/spam accounts, while 4 times what Twitter claims, could be much higher. My recommendation based on Twitter’s SEC filings is correct.”
He added: “Yesterday, the CEO of Twitter publicly refused to give proof of the 5%. The deal cannot go on until he does.”
Twitter declined to comment.
It’s Musk’s latest rant about unauthenticated accounts, an issue he’s been told he wants to remove Twitter from.
At a technology conference in Miami on Monday, Musk estimated that at least 20% of the 229 million Twitter accounts are spam bots, a percentage he says is on the low end of his assessment. Bloomberg reports.
The battle over spam accounts began last week when Musk wrote on Twitter that the Twitter deal was on hold pending the company’s confirmation of the company’s estimate that they make up less than 5% of the total population. use.
Also at All In Summit, Musk made the strongest suggestion that he wants to pay less for twitter compared to a $44 billion offer he made last month.
He said a possible deal at a lower price wouldn’t be out of the question, as reported by Bloomberg, which said it watched a live video of the conference posted by a Twitter user.
Musk’s comments are likely to bolster theories from analysts that the billionaire wants to pull out of the deal or buy the company at a cheaper price. His tweet Tuesday, published on a Tesla news site, speculated that Musk “might be looking for a better deal on Twitter because $44 billion seems so high.”
Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives, who covers both Twitter and Tesla, said in a research note: “Twitter stock will again come under pressure this morning as the chances of a final deal being struck are zero. good”. He estimates that there is a “60%+ chance” of Musk walking away from the deal and paying the $1 billion breakup fee.
Musk made an offer to buy back Twitter for $54.20 per share on April 14. Twitter stock has been sliding since then and is now down just over 8% to close at $37.39 on Wednesday. Two.
To finance the acquisition, Musk pledged some of his Tesla stock, which has fallen by about a third since the deal was announced.
