As the Elon Musk Twitter deal was on its way to finalizing, a new bump on the road showed up the road in the form of the number of spam and bot accounts.
Why is Elon Musk Twitter deal on hold?
After Twitter revealed that phony or spam accounts made up less than 5% of its 226 million daily monetizable users, Elon Musk claimed that the purchase had been “temporarily put on hold.” The Tesla CEO tweeted a link to a May 2nd Reuters story documenting Twitter’s filing, stating he wanted to review the numbers. He tweeted:
“Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users,”
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
Elon Musk Twitter takeover
Eccentric billionaire agreed to buy Twitter Inc. for $44 billion, using one of history’s biggest leveraged buyout deals. The company said that investors will receive $54.20 for each share they own in a statement Monday. The price is 38% more than the stock’s close on April 1, the last business day before Musk disclosed a significant stake in the company.
With this takeover, Elon Musk has many ambitious goals to improve the social media platform. Aside from waging a war on the army of bots, some of these goals include creating an edit button so that the user may modify their tweets, opening up Twitter’s algorithm for the public, and getting rid of advertisements.
Elon Musk Twitter deal is on hold
The key portion of Twitter’s filing is as follows. It states that its estimates of the number of fraudulent or spam accounts are “an estimate,” and that the actual number “could be higher than we have estimated”:
“We have performed an internal review of a sample of accounts and estimate that the average of false or spam accounts during the first quarter of 2022 represented fewer than 5% of our mDAU during the quarter. The false or spam accounts for a period represent the average of false or spam accounts in the samples during each monthly analysis period during the quarter. In making this determination, we applied significant judgment, so our estimation of false or spam accounts may not accurately represent the actual number of such accounts, and the actual number of false or spam accounts could be higher than we have estimated.”
Twitter has a long history of mathematical mistakes. It recently revealed in an earnings statement that it had overstated its daily users for three years running. The company explained that a programming mistake had caused it to count many accounts as active, despite belonging to a single user, resulting in it double-counting its user figures by up to 1.9 million each quarter.
Elon Musk has made reducing the number of “spam and scam bots” and “bot armies” on Twitter a major element of his argument for enhancing the service, as well as prioritizing free speech and opening up the platform’s ranking algorithms.
When does the Twitter deal close?
The latest roadblock in Elon Musk’s bid to take over the social media network has been put on hold. On learning of the news, Twitter’s share price dropped 19 percent as of this writing. The firm first announced a “poison pill” plan to block the takeover before eventually accepting it in late April. With the current situation about the spam accounts, it could be some time before the Elon Musk Twitter deal is finalized.
Will Elon Musk reverse Trump ban?
Elon Musk declared that Twitter would reverse its ban of former President Donald Trump if his purchase of the social media network is completed, indicating just how permissive the platform might become under his control. At a motor conference, Tesla CEO Elon Musk stated that Twitter’s ban of Trump following the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol was a “morally bad decision” and “foolish in the extreme.”
“I think that was a mistake because it alienated a large part of the country and did not ultimately result in Donald Trump not having a voice,” said Musk. He also stated that he preferred more short-term suspensions and other meticulously tailored penalties for content that is unlawful or otherwise harmful to the world.
We hope that you enjoyed this article about the latest developments on the Elon Musk Twitter deal. If you did, make sure to check out why did Dogecoin go up after Elon Musk bought Twitter, or the Twitter throne fight: CEO fires 2 executives, halts hiring.
