Tesla CEO Elon Musk is making a commotion again. He just said the Twitter purchase process was delayed, due to the problem with the number of fake accounts on Twitter.
"Twitter deals are temporarily suspended, (there are) pending details for calculations that spam/fake accounts do represent less than 5% of users," Elon said in a tweet.
Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of usershttps://t.co/Y2t0QMuuyn
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 13, 2022
Elon Musk had previously agreed to buy Twitter for $44 billion. Reporting from CNN, Friday (5/13/2022) Elon Musk's tweet sent Twitter shares down more than 20%.
In his tweet, Musk linked to a Reuters report on May 2, 2022 about the problem of spam and fake accounts on Twitter. Twitter in its first quarter financial report said fake or spam accounts were less than 5% of total active users in the first 3 months of 2022.
Twitter says their sample figures are reasonable. However these data are not independently verified and may be higher in number.
Twitter has had a spam problem for years. Twitter has also previously acknowledged that reducing fake and malicious accounts is important for Twitter to continue to grow.
It's not clear why Elon Musk asked for a delay because of this latest Twitter data. However, Elon Musk insists he remains committed to buying Twitter.
Still committed to acquisition
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 13, 2022
Previously, Twitter reshuffled its management and two managers were bounced. Previously, Elon Musk also often talked about bot accounts promoting spam content and Twitter which was deemed too quick to delete posts that were deemed to violate the rules.
On Tuesday, Musk made headlines by saying he would allow former President Donald Trump to return to Twitter once the Twitter purchase process was complete. Trump's account was permanently deleted after his followers attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
