Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, is currently the richest person in the world, according to Forbes magazine, with an estimated fortune of 94,000 million dollars.
This businessman, whose supporters consider him an iconoclastic genius and his critics an erratic megalomaniac, surprised the world of finance in April when announced that he wanted to buy Twitter. But his offer for 44,000 million dollars is on hold until the estimated number of fake accounts, known as “bots.”
“Twitter’s CEO yesterday refused to prove that less than 5% of accounts are fake,” tweeted Musk, who has almost 94 millions of followers on the social network. “Until it does, the deal cannot go ahead,” he added.
Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal says the platform suspends more than half a million apparently fake accounts every day, many times before they are public and every week blocks millions of alleged users on suspicion that they are accounts managed by a computer application.
Internal analysis shows that less than 5% of active accounts on an average day qualify as spam, but these accounts cannot be replicated by third parties due to privacy requirements, Agrawal said.
Musk – who claims that “bots” are a plague on Twitter and that he considers it a priority to get rid of them if he takes control of the platform – responded to Agrawal’s explanation in a tweet, with an icon in the form of poop “So advertisers know what they get for their money?” Musk added in another dialogue about the need to prove that Twitter users are all people.
How many are bots, how many real profiles?
Musk stated that “this is essential for the financial health of Twitter”. The procedure for estimating how many accounts are “bots” has been shared with Musk, Agrawal insisted.
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives indicated in a note to investors that the issue of fake accounts is making the deal becomes confusing. “The issue of ‘bots’ at the end of the day is something known even by taxi drivers in New York and seems more like an excuse of the type ‘the dog ate my homework’ to get out of the deal on Twitter or to achieve it at a price lower”, said the expert.
Musk has stated that his purchase motivation stems from a desire to ensure that there is freedom of expression on the platform and to promote the monetization of a page that is very influential but that has difficulties to have a profitable growth.
The businessman also declared himself in favor of lifting the veto on the platform against former US President Donald Trump that was imposed after his supporters, inflamed by his tweets alleging election fraud, attacked the US Congress on January 6, 2021.
jov (afp, wdr5)