On Friday, Elon Musk revealed that his $44 billion proposal to acquire Twitter is on hold until he gets confirmation that spam or false accounts on the micro-blogging service make up fewer than 5% of its user base. A 20 percent drop in the stock price was seen in premarket trading. Twitter projected that less than 5% of its monetizable daily active users were fraudulent or spam accounts during the first quarter.
Removing Spam Bots One of the Top Goals
In the first three months, the social media business offered ads to 229 million users.
Musk, the world’s wealthiest man and CEO of Tesla, has previously said that removing “spam bots” from the platform would be one of his top goals. Musk’s campaign to overhaul Twitter has focused on shutting down phony accounts. As part of his announcement to acquire Twitter, he said he wants to eliminate spam bots, verify all users, and open-source its algorithms.
Doubts about Musk’s takeover of Twitter have increased in recent days. During Thursday’s trading session, the spread on the transaction, which indicates how much Wall Street thinks the acquisition will be completed, increased to $9.11 from $8.11. Musk’s attempt to buy Twitter for $54.20 was at its widest level since he revealed a roughly $7.1 billion financial commitment last week.
Musk’s newest post came only a few hours after Twitter said it was halting new hires as cost-cutting measures before the sale. Twitter’s top two executives are also leaving the company. CEO Parag Agrawal has requested Kayvon Beykpour, director of consumer product, and Bruce Falck, head of revenue product, to leave the firm, the two executives said in separate public statements.