In some circles, Elon Musk's possible takeover of Twitter has been cheered for weeks, since he has promised full "freedom of expression" and it is therefore hoped that bullying will then be possible again with impunity, and perhaps even Donald Trump will be allowed to tweet again.
But the deal has now suffered a further setback because Musk doesn't like the official figures at all!

Is Musk looking for an exit or a better deal?

Twitter's shares, which Musk probably wants to delist after the takeover, fell another 8 percent after Musk declared, according to Bloomberg , that the possibility of reforming Twitter was not "out of the question."

During a tech conference called "All In" in Miami on Monday, Musk noted that he believes 20 percent of users on the platform are fake or spam accounts, and that could be why the Tesla CEO He did not rule out the possibility of reforming the deal, which would allow him to pay a lower price.

He now repeated this on Twitter:

“While 20% fake/spam accounts is four times higher than Twitter stated, it could much higher.
My offer was based on Twitter's SEC reports being accurate.
Yesterday, Twitter's CEO publicly refused to provide proof of <5%.
As long as he doesn’t do that, the business can’t move forward.”

Source: Elon Musk on Twitter

How Musk gets to 20 percent is a mystery.
But the fact is that fake and spam accounts in the form of bots are not a new problem. There also seems to be a big difference in the number of bots when it comes to specific accounts. Tim Graham, an employee of the QUT Digital Media Research Center, put it to the test:

the “ Botometer ” to check 5,000 random accounts and found that only 6 of them were bots, i.e. 0.001 percent.
Then he checked Elon Musk's account:

Of Musk's 14,000 newest followers, around 8.6 percent are bots. The numbers vary widely depending on how and which accounts are checked - only Twitter knows the final number - and they don't want to give Musk the numbers (yet).

Whether Musk will wait until he has the official figures and then demand a lower price, or whether he will then use the missing or different figures to exit the business, is still unclear. Twitter itself has not yet commented on this, but only announced that they aim to complete the transaction at the agreed price and terms as quickly as possible.

Item image: Glomex

Interesting in this context:

Elon Musk announced today that he has slowed down his plans to purchase Twitter.
He published this himself on Twitter. But he wrote even more! Elon Musk on Twitter: What's happening now?


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