Elon Musk has terminated his deal with Twitter over wrong account data
Written byTimes Magazine
Elon Musk said a $44 billion ($35 billion) deal to buy Twitter was delayed after asking about the number of fake also spam accounts on the social media platform.
He said he was waiting for information "that supports the estimate that spam/fake accounts make up less than 5% of users." However, analysts speculate that he may try to renegotiate the price or even withdraw from the acquisition.
Musk's tweet caused share prices on Twitter to drop 10% during the morning trade in New York. Before his comments, the company's stock sold for less than $54.20 per share, which Musk offered, signifying that the market was not convinced he would complete the acquisition.
Dan Ives, the technical analyst at investment firm Wedbush Securities, said Musk's comments would "put this circus show on Twitter on Friday the 13th horror show". "Many will see this as Musk used this Twitter feed/spam account to exit this deal in a rapidly changing market," he wrote.
"The way Musk creates so much uncertainty in one tweet (not a post) really bothers us... and now he's sending this whole deal to a circus show with lots of questions and no concrete answers about how this deal works."
Mr. Musk has spoken out against "beating spam bots," citing it as a critical goal after the company's proposed acquisition. Twitter has long faced accusations that it doesn't do enough to deal with automated fake accounts that post content.
In a statement more than 2 weeks ago, Twitter estimated that fake accounts made up less than 5% of daily active users in the first three months of this year. However, he warned that the numbers were based on estimates and could be higher.
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