Elon Musk States Twitter Deal ‘Cannot Move Forward’ Until Bot Discrepancy is Looked at

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is now stating that his $44 billion deal to acquire Twitter will not be moving forward until looks into the matter of the number of bots on the platform. This comes off the heels of last week’s news when Musk tweeted the deal was being paused for the same reason.

On Friday of last week, Musk tweeted a report from Reuters, in which Twitter estimated that five percent of monetizable daily active users (mDAUs)during Q1 2022 were bots. However, Musk now believes that number is much higher. The Tesla CEO claims that up to 20 percent mDAUs could have been bots. “My offer was based on Twitter’s SEC filings being accurate,” Musk tweeted. “Yesterday, Twitter’s CEO publicly refused to show proof of <5%. This deal cannot move forward until he does.”

Not long after Musk expressed deeper concerns over the acquisition, Twitter submitted a proxy filing to the SEC and confirmed that it is committed to the deal at the pre-agreed price. Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal has also posted a thread about spam and data surrounding the platform, as reported by CNBC.

Some believe that Musk is looking at avenues to negotiate the price and drive it down. In a research note, equity analyst Brent Thill and equity associate James Heaney said, “We believe that Musk is using his investigation into the % of fake TWTR accounts as an excuse to pay below $54.20/share.” The note continues, “In reality, the NASDAQ COMP is down 25% YTD [year-to-date] and Elon Musk realizes that he may be overpaying for the asset.”

Musk claims that he and his team will conduct the appropriate research into the bot discrepancy in order to determine how the deal shall proceed. According to Musk, his team will sample 100 followers. “I invite others to repeat the same process and see what they discover.” In a subsequent tweet, Musk said, “Pick any account with a lot of followers,” and “Ignore first 1000 followers, then pick every 10th. I’m open to better ideas.”

It’s still unclear what the bottom line for the Twitter deal will be. At this junction, it appears though a lot rides on the findings of him and his team. We’ll certainly be following this story as it evolves over the weeks.

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