Billionaire Elon Musk said Friday that his $44 billion bid to buy Twitter has been temporarily on hold. “Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users,” Musk said in a tweet. Musk had retweeted a media report citing Twitter filing which stated that less than 5 per cent users on the social media platform are spam or fake accounts.
Elon Musk – the world’s wealthiest person – inked a deal to buy Twitter stating that he wants to weed out the fake bot accounts and authenticate real humans on the social media platform. He also said he wants to make Twitter a balanced and well-moderated platform. In a filing earlier this month, Twitter said it had 229 million users in the first quarter, who were served advertising, out of nearly 11 million users who fall under false or spam accounts category, according to a Reuters report.
Twitter said it faced several risks until the deal with Musk is closed, such as whether advertisers would continue to spend on Twitter and “potential uncertainty regarding our future plans and strategy, ” the report added.
Elon Musk agreed to buy Twitter for $44 billion in order to make the platform a balanced ‘digital town hall’. Musk has also arranged financing for the deal from various bankers. He also sold Tesla shares worth $8.5 billion to finance the deal. Analysts however have mixed perception if the deal will get through. The deal is currently pending approval from shareholders as well as US regulators.
Earlier this week activist investor Hindenburg Research released a report and said there are chances that Elon Musk would pay $1 billion in breakup fee and walk away from the deal. Hindenburg Research said it is short on Twitter stock since Elon Musk holds all the cards in the deal with the social media platform, and hence the short seller sees a significant risk that the Twitter deal could get “repriced lower” if the billionaire backs out from the deal. Responding to the report in a tweet, Musk retorted and said, “Interesting. Don’t forget to look on the bright side of life sometimes!” Read more
