Elon Musk has claimed that he will not proceed with his $44 billion purchase of Twitter unless he gets more information on the number of bogus accounts. Twitter projected in a filing earlier this month that bots and spam accounts accounted for fewer than 5% of its monetizable daily active users in the first quarter.
Musk, on the other hand, estimates that around 20% of Twitter accounts are fraudulent or spam, and he is afraid that the proportion may be far higher. Musk said early Tuesday morning via Twitter that ‘While Twitter says 20% of its accounts are fake/spam, the actual figure might be *much* higher. My bid was predicated on the accuracy of Twitter’s SEC filings. Twitter’s CEO openly declined to present proof of 5% yesterday. This transaction cannot be completed unless he does’.
Twitter’s shares fell 2.22 percent in pre-market trade on Tuesday as a result of this revelation. Musk has indicated that his team is doing its own study into the amount of bogus accounts on the site, but experts in social media, misinformation and statistical analysis think his proposed technique for further inquiry is woefully insufficient.
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