Elon Musk has reaffirmed his allegation that bogus and spam accounts for more than 20% of Twitter’s users, stating the acquisition agreement “cannot move forward” until Twitter verifies the veracity of its far lower estimate of less than 5%.
Musk is currently in the process of purchasing Twitter for $44 billion, which includes its estimated 226 million monetizable daily active users.
“While Twitter claims 20% fake/spam accounts, it might be *much* higher,” the Tesla CEO tweeted in response to a post by Teslarati. “My offer was based on the accuracy of Twitter’s SEC filings.
The CEO of Twitter publicly declined to offer proof of 5% yesterday. This transaction will not be completed unless he does.”
Musk made similar remarks at a Miami tech conference yesterday, according to Bloomberg. During his presentation, Elon Musk predicted that bots might account for at least 20% of Twitter users. “Right now, I’m being told that there’s no way to know how many bots there are,” Musk remarked. “It’s as mysterious as the human soul.”
Elon Musk is rumored to be exploiting the topic of the amount of bots on Twitter as a negotiating technique to get a lower acquisition price.
According to Bloomberg, at yesterday’s conference, the CEO stated that a viable deal at a lower price would not be “out of the question.”
Musk’s remarks came just days after he claimed his acquisition of the social media network was “temporarily on hold” due to concerns over the number of reported spam or phoney accounts. He then stated that he is “still dedicated to the acquisition.”
On Monday, the Tesla CEO’s attempts to clarify these figures resulted in a public confrontation with Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal. Agrawal detailed the number of spam accounts suspended by Twitter each day, as well as how the team detects them.
“we don’t believe this specific estimation can be performed externally, given the critical need to use both public and private information (which we can’t share).” he said, citing the vital necessity to use both public and private information (which we can’t share). Musk used the excrement emoji to response to his lengthy tweet thread.
“So how do advertisers know what they’re getting for their money?” Musk tweeted. “This is fundamental to the financial health of Twitter.” As proof, the Tesla CEO proposed publicly sampling 100 accounts and identifying the amount of bots.
Musk’s proposal on how he’d enhance Twitter under his ownership includes tackling the volume of spam and inauthentic accounts. He’s also expressed a desire to promote free expression and make the platform’s algorithms open source.
To read our blog on “Elon Musk claims he was told he had broken an NDA by Twitter’s legal team,” click here.
