Elon Musk threatened to pull out of his bid to buy Twitter on Monday, accusing the company of failing to give data on false accounts, in the latest twist in the Tesla billionaire’s pursuit of the social media platform.
Social media platform has committed “a clear material breach” of its “obligations under the merger agreement and Mr. Musk reserves … his right not to consummate the transaction,” according to a document filed with securities regulators.
Musk’s previous statements highlighting phony accounts as a danger to his proposed $44 billion takeovers of Twitter have gotten louder with the filing.
According to Musk, the true number of bots might be four times larger than Twitter’s estimations.
Bots can be used to propagate misleading information or provide a mistaken sense of how broadly material is consumed and shared on social media.
According to Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, fewer than 5% of accounts active on any given day are bots, however, that analysis cannot be reproduced outside of the company due to the necessity to keep user data private.
Musk has already dismissed Twitter’s comments, and he restated that position in his filing on Monday.
Musk “must have a comprehensive and correct understanding of the fundamental basis of Twitter’s business model — its active user base” to carry out the purchase, according to the document.
“Mr. Musk believes Twitter is transparently refusing to comply with its obligations under the merger agreement, which is causing further suspicion that the company is withholding the requested data due to concern for what Mr. Musk’s own analysis of that data will uncover.”
Twitter’s stock dropped 3.6 percent to $38.70 in early trading.
To read our blog on “A campaign initiated against Elon Musk to stop the Twitter deal by an advocacy group,” click here.
