Twitter Deal ‘Cannot Move Forward’ Until There’s More Clarity on Bot Numbers

Elon Musk said the deal with Twitter (NYSE:) will not progress until the social media company proves that spambots represent less than 5% of its total users, Tesla CEO tweeted on Tuesday.

“My offer was based on Twitter’s SEC filings being accurate. Yesterday, Twitter’s CEO publicly refused to show proof of

Last week, Musk put his $44 billion takeover bid on hold as he sought information about Twitter’s spambot accounts, with the Tesla CEO suspecting spambots represent a minimum of 20% of total users, compared to Twitter’s projections of 5%.

“You can’t pay the same price for something that is much worse than they claimed,” Musk said at the All-In Summit 2022 conference.

The billionaire also suggested that the price of the deal could change, saying it is “not out of the question”. Shares of Twitter closed 8.18% lower on Monday, raising questions about whether Musk would move forward with the deal at the agreed price of $44 billion.

Twitter stock price is down a further 3.6% in pre-open Tuesday following the latest tweets from Musk.

In response to Musk’s days-long criticism, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal tweeted Monday that the company’s estimates of the number of spambot accounts on the platform stood below 5%. He said that the estimates, which remain unchanged since 2013, cannot be reproduced externally as it would require both public and private data to identify a spambot account.

Musk responded to Agrawal’s claims by tweeting a “poop” emoji and calling for random samples of Twitter users to identify bot accounts, arguing that “there is some chance it might be over 90% of daily active users”.

By Senad Karaahmetovic