Twitter deal won’t advance without addressing spam bots, Musk says

Might 17 (Reuters) – Elon Musk mentioned on Tuesday his $44-billion supply wouldn’t transfer ahead till Twitter Inc (TWTR.N) exhibits proof that spam bots account for lower than 5% of its complete customers, hours after suggesting he might search a cheaper price for the corporate.

“My supply was based mostly on Twitter’s SEC filings being correct. Yesterday, Twitter’s CEO publicly refused to point out proof of <5% (spam accounts). This deal can not transfer ahead till he does,” Musk mentioned in a tweet.

Hours later, Twitter mentioned it was dedicated to finishing the deal on the agreed value and phrases “as promptly as practicable.”

Its inventory pared losses in premarket buying and selling, however was down about 3% at $36.31, decrease than its value on the day earlier than Musk disclosed his Twitter stake, elevating doubts if the billionaire entrepreneur would proceed together with his supply of $54.20 per share.

After placing his supply on maintain final week pending info on spam accounts, Musk mentioned he suspected they account for not less than 20% of customers in contrast with Twitter’s official estimate of 5%.

“You’ll be able to’t pay the identical value for one thing that’s a lot worse than they claimed,” he mentioned on Monday on the All-In Summit 2022 convention in Miami.

Requested if the deal is viable at a unique value, Musk mentioned, “I imply, it isn’t out of the query. The extra questions I ask, the extra my issues develop.”

“They declare that they have this complicated methodology that solely they will perceive… It can’t be some deep thriller that’s, like, extra complicated than the human soul or one thing like that.”

Twitter Chief Govt Parag Agrawal tweeted on Monday that inner estimates of spam accounts on the social media platform for the final 4 quarters had been “effectively underneath 5%,” responding to Musk’s criticism of the corporate’s dealing with of phony accounts.

Twitter’s estimate, which has stayed the identical since 2013, couldn’t be reproduced externally given the necessity to use each private and non-private info to find out if an account is spam, Agrawal mentioned.

Musk responded to Agrawal’s protection of the methodology with a poop emoji. “So how do advertisers know what they’re getting for his or her cash? That is basic to the monetary well being of Twitter,” he wrote.

Musk has pledged modifications to Twitter’s content material moderation practices, railing in opposition to selections like its ban of former President Donald Trump as overly aggressive whereas pledging to crack down on “spam bots”. learn extra

Musk has known as for checks of random samples of Twitter customers to determine bots. He mentioned, “there may be some likelihood it could be over 90% of every day lively customers.”

He expects complete variety of Twitter customers to develop to almost 600 million in 2025 and to 931 million in six years from now.

“Contemplating Musk believes that at most 80% of Twitter’s present 229 million (customers) are people, it’s even tougher to imagine the corporate can obtain its long-term targets,” Jefferies analyst Brent Thill mentioned.

Reporting by Katie Paul and Hyunjoo Jin in San Francisco, Krystal Hu in New York and Nivedita Balu and Shubham Kalia in Bengaluru
Modifying by Kenneth Li, Matthew Lewis, Bernard Orr, Aditya Soni and Arun Koyyur

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