The battle over bots has become a sticking point for Musk, who told a tech conference in Miami on Monday that fake users make up at least 20 per cent of all Twitter accounts, possibly as high as 90 per cent. Twitter regularly states in its quarterly results that the average of false or spam accounts “represented fewer than 5 per cent of our monthly daily active users during the quarter,” adding that it applied “significant judgment” to its estimate, and the true number could be higher.
Twitter’s board announced they had unanimously backed the deal. Credit:AP
Musk encouraged Twitter users to run their own tests for bots, crowd-sourcing the effort to calculate whether they made up less than 5 per cent of the service. Responding to Musk’s assertions, Agrawal posted a long thread laying out his company’s methodology. Musk replied by first asking why Twitter doesn’t just call users to verify their identity — and then by posting a poop emoji.
The proposed takeover includes a $US1 billion breakup fee for each party, which Musk will have to pay if he ends the deal or fails to deliver the acquisition funding as promised. It is unclear whether an update by Twitter on the number of fake accounts — if materially larger than 5 per cent — would trigger a so-called material adverse effect clause, releasing Musk from the breakup fee.
The latest barrage of tweets from the world’s richest person is yet another twist in Musk’s attempted takeover of the micro-blogging site. A prolific user with over 90 million followers, he revealed a stake of more than 9 per cent in the company last month, then launched an unsolicited takeover offer — without detailed financing plans — all within a matter of weeks.
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Musk caused the potential cracks in the deal to widen last week when he tweeted that his offer to buy Twitter was “temporarily on hold” until he gets more information about the proportion of fake accounts. Roughly two hours later, Musk claimed in another tweet that he was “still committed” to the deal.
Bloomberg
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