“You can’t pay the same price for something that’s a lot worse than what it says it is,” the Tesla boss said at a conference in Miami, referring to the allegedly higher number of Twitter accounts that are not backed by real people.
On Tuesday, Musk said the $44 billion deal would not go ahead until Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal publicly demonstrated that less than 5 percent of user accounts are spam and fake accounts.
The multi-billionaire only put the acquisition on hold on Friday, citing a lack of information about the number of spam and false accounts. According to the short message service, the number is less than five percent, while Musk assumes at least a fifth of users.
When asked at the All-In conference if the deal would go through at a different price, Musk said, “It’s not out of the question.” At the same time, the 50-year-old explained that the more questions he asked on Twitter, the greater his concerns. How is it possible that advertisers even know exactly what they are getting for their money. “This is fundamental to Twitter’s financial health.”
The US group has not changed its information on spam and false accounts since 2013. Twitter boss Parag Agrawal tweeted that the number “is well below five percent” of the 229 million users. Currently, Twitter users are not required to reveal their real identities when signing up. At the start of the week, the Twitter share continued the slide it started on Friday.
At the end of April, Twitter had agreed to the takeover by Musk and thus his “best and last offer”. Musk wants to take the 16-year-old company private. According to insiders, during the financing talks with banks, he has already stated that he wants to find new ways to make money with tweets and cut manager salaries. At the same time, Musk declared that he wanted to make Twitter a haven for freedom of expression and also let the banned former US President Donald Trump back on the platform. Should Musk eventually reverse the Twitter takeover, he’ll have to pay a $1 billion fine. According to Forbes, the American is worth $265 billion, making him the richest man in the world.
Source: Nachrichten
