Tesla chief Elon Musk on Friday said that his $44 billion microblogging platform Twitter deal is put on hold temporarily due to pending details about the spam and fake accounts. Twitter had earlier this month estimated that false or spam accounts represented fewer than 5 percent of its monetizable daily active users during the first quarter when it recorded 229 million users who were served to advertise.
Twitter’s stock plunged over 19 percent after Elon Musk tweeted that the deal to buy the social media giant was temporarily on hold because of the pending details of supporting the calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5 percent of users. On the other hand, Tesla shot up 5 percent on the US futures in pre-market trade.
Last month, Musk had clinched a deal to buy Twitter Inc for $44 billion cash in a transaction. Musk, the world’s richest man, had recently said that one of his priorities would be to remove “spambots” from the platform. The company had earlier this month estimated that false or spam accounts represented fewer than 5 percent of its monetizable daily active users during the first quarter.
Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of usershttps://t.co/Y2t0QMuuyn
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 13, 2022
Musk in his latest tweet said that the “Twitter deal is temporarily on hold pending details supporting the calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5 percent of users.”It is not clear if Musk is serious about his tweet or if he is just joking. And given the way he has been tweeting for the last 20 days, it could be anything. The reason why the talk of spambots could be a joke is that such due diligence is usually done before the merger and acquisition deals are announced.
The social media company had said it faced several risks until the deal with Musk is closed, including whether advertisers would continue to spend on Twitter amid “potential uncertainty regarding future plans and strategy.”Musk has been critical of Twitter’s moderation policy. He has said he wants Twitter’s algorithm to prioritize tweets to be public and was against too much power on the service to corporations that advertise.
