New York (The Times Groupe)- Elon Musk says he will not purchase Twitter for $44 billion until he knows how many accounts are fake or spam.
In a filing earlier this month, Twitter estimated that fewer than 5% of its monetizable daily active users, or mDAUs, were fake or spam accounts.
Elon Musk estimates that 20% of Twitter accounts are fake or spam accounts, and he is concerned that the number could even be higher.
Musk tweeted early Tuesday that his offer was based on Twitter’s SEC filings being accurate. “Twitter’s CEO publicly refused to show proof of the 5% yesterday. Until he does, this deal cannot move forward.”
Musk claims that many of the spam accounts are “bots,” however Twitter does not mention the word once in its SEC filing. Fake or spam accounts, also referred to as bot accounts, are automated and not controlled by humans. Twitter doesn’t ban all automated Twitter bots, which are programmed to tweet set things at set times, but they can be good or bad.
Elon Musk may be looking for a better Twitter deal as $44 billion seems too high with 20% of users being fake or spam accounts.https://t.co/rZ9Jsn60Mh pic.twitter.com/dQDVva3klZ
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) May 17, 2022
Twitter announced later Tuesday morning that it is committed to the deal at the pre-agreed price and has filed a proxy filing with the SEC.
In premarket trading Tuesday, shares of the company fell 2.46%. Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNBC.
Musk’s tweet comes just hours after Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal posted a lengthy thread about spam on the social network.