Elon Musk tweeted that his US$44 billion (R708 billion) takeover of Twitter is “temporarily on hold” until the billionaire receives more information about the proportion of fake accounts, sending the social media giant into a tailspin.
Twitter slumped 20% in pre-market trading after Musk tweeted Friday that the deal was suspended, pending details on a recent filing from Twitter that fake accounts on the social media platform contributed less than 5% of its users. Tesla shares rose roughly 5%.
Twitter said in its latest quarterly results “that the average of false or spam accounts during the first quarter of 2022 represented fewer than 5% of our monthly daily active users during the quarter.” However, Twitter said it applied “significant judgment” to its latest estimate, and the true number could be higher.
Fighting fake accounts has been a cornerstone of Musk’s bid to reform Twitter. In a statement announcing his deal to buy the company last month, he revealed he wanted to defeat spam bots, authenticate all humans, and make its algorithms open source. Musk has also said he’d like to make the platform a bastion of free speech, taking the guardrails off of content moderation.-fin24
