Tesla’s Elon Musk proposed takeover of Twitter Inc. may not occur as doubts about the accurate reporting of bot accounts on the service continue, according to a report. Twitter’s executive has reiterated that the spam accounts numbers are low and tried to explain the methodology used to calculate the figures.
What is this all about?
According to Bloomberg News, Twitter has repeatedly said that its spam bots are less than 5% of the total user base. Musk has threatened to return from the deal after complaining that the numbers are much higher. He wants a confirmation on Twitter’s bot percentage before he agrees to the agreement to buy the company at $44 billion.
Musk Team has stopped engaging in discussions about funding the buyout and has concluded that Twitter cannot verify its spam accounts numbers, according to people familiar with the matter. The Washing Post cited the people who said that the bot’s issue had put the acquisition of Twitter by the CEO in serious jeopardy.
In a statement to Bloomberg News, the spokesman of Twitter said that the social media platform was continuing to share information with the Tesla CEO to consummate the transaction per the agreement terms. According to him, Twitter believes that the agreement was in the best interest of all shareholders. They plan to close the deal and enforce the merger at the agreed terms and price.
The shares of Twitter declined 4% in extended trading on Thursday after Washing Post reports. The stock has fallen 10% in 2022 and closed at $38.79 in New York Thursday.
In a press briefing, the Executives of Twitter said that the company reviews thousands of accounts manually every quarter to determine the 5% bot figures. It estimates that the actual numbers are much below what was disclosed in the filing.
The comma also checks its internal data to confirm the bot accounts, like verifying phone numbers and IP addresses to determine if a human runs the account.
Musk had asked for an audit of the bot accounts estimated by Twitter. Twitter said they have shared data with Elon Musk and working with his team within the scope of the M&A agreement.
On being asked what data was shared with Musk, Twitter’s executive declined to comment but said that the company’s internal data is not shared with outsiders on account of privacy concerns.
Twitter had earlier provided access to the public tweets to Musk, but the data included public tweets and not private accounts.
An executive asking not to be identified said that an outsider couldn’t estimate the number of spam bots on the service without the data.
