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Elon Musk: Suspicions over spammy accounts could break Twitter deal



LONDON (AP) — Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the deal to buy Twitter will not move forward unless the company shows public evidence that less than 5% of accounts on the social media platform are fake or spammy.

Musk made this comment in response to another user on Twitter earlier on Tuesday. He spent most of the previous day back and forth with Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, who posted a series of tweets explaining his company’s efforts to combat bots and how he consistently estimated that less than 5% of Twitter accounts were fake.

Musk tweeted on Tuesday, “20% fake/spam accounts could be much higher if 4 times what Twitter claimed. My proposal was based on the accuracy of Twitter’s SEC filings.”

“Yesterday, the Twitter CEO publicly refused to show a 5% proof. This deal can’t move forward until he makes it.”

Musk’s latest salvo on unsubstantiated accounts is a problem Twitter says he wants to get rid of.

At a tech conference in Miami on Monday, Musk estimated that at least 20% of Twitter’s 229 million accounts were spambots, according to a Bloomberg News report, which he said was at the lowest level of his assessment.

The battle over spam accounts began last week when Musk tweeted that the Twitter deal was put on hold until the company awaited confirmation of its estimates that they accounted for less than 5% of total users.

Also at All In Summit, Musk gave Twitter the strongest hint that he’s willing to pay less than the $44 billion bid he made last month.

According to Bloomberg’s report, which said he watched the live-stream video of the conference posted by a Twitter user, there would be no viable deal at a lower price, he said.

Musk’s comments seem to support analysts’ theories that the billionaire either wants to pull out of the deal or buy the company at a cheaper price. His tweet on Tuesday came in response to someone on a Tesla news site who said Musk “could be looking for a better Twitter deal because $44 billion seems so high.”

Musk made an offer to buy Twitter on April 14 for $54.20 per share. Twitter shares have since fallen and are now down just over 8% to close at $37.39 on Monday.

It has committed a portion of Tesla shares to fund the acquisition, but it has fallen by a third since the deal was announced.





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