Elon Musk has announced that he is putting his bid to acquire Twitter “on hold,” weeks after making a deal to buy the social media company for $44 billion.
The news that the deal is on hold sent Twitter shares crashing more than 20% in premarket trading.
“Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users,” Musk said Friday morning.
Twitter has had a spam bot problem for years and Musk has promised to tackle and end the issue.
However, it appears he wants to look at Twitter’s real numbers before pulling the trigger.
Twitter claims bots make up fewer than 5% of users but that number has not been audited by outside eyes.
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
“In its quarterly financial report, released on April 28, Twitter estimated that fake or spam accounts made up fewer than 5% of the platform’s active users during the first three months of the year,” according to CNN.
“Twitter noted that the estimates were based on a review of sample accounts and it believed the numbers to be ‘reasonable.’
“But it acknowledged that the measurements were not independently verified and the actual number of fake or spam accounts could be higher.”
Still committed to acquisition
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 13, 2022
Kara Swisher thinks Musk is just trying to get a better price for Twitter as the stock market crashes under Democrat President Joe Biden’s economy.
She said: “The Elon weed price is the only thing stopping Twitter from falling deep into the Mariana Trench of tech stocks where all the others are floating around with the funny looking sea fish.
“Will he try to get a better — i.e. lower — price is what I want to know.
“He wants to walk without paying fee and come back at a lower price.
“The question is does the SEC allow it and do his banks stick with him on this?”
The Elon weed price is the only thing stopping Twitter from falling deep into the Mariana Trench of tech stocks where all the others are floating around with the funny looking sea fish. Will he try to get a better — i.e. lower — price is what I want to know. pic.twitter.com/N58HZCtCKj
— Kara Swisher (@karaswisher) May 11, 2022
From CNBC:
Twitter’s stock plummeted 18% following the announcement. A spokesperson for Twitter did not immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment.
Tesla CEO Musk announced last month that he intends to buy Twitter for $44 billion and he’s previously tweeted that one of his main priorities would be to remove “spam bots” from the platform.
Even before Friday’s announcement, the company’s market value had fallen to $9 billion beneath the offer price due to concerns about the deal.
