Elon Musk and his intent on buying Twitter has been the talk of the internet for quite awhile, from when he became its largest shareholder to when its board of directors accepted the deal. And it looks like the two of them will continue to be the talk of the internet for awhile more. The Tesla CEO has recently announced that the deal is temporarily on hold.
Musk made the announcement on the platform he is likely about to own. According to the tweet, he is putting the deal on hold until more details about the exact number of fake accounts of the platform surface. Also cited in the tweet is an estimate that the number of fake accounts amounts to less than five percent of its 229 million “monetisable” daily active users.
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
Among the rhetorics used as justification behind Musk’s buying of Twitter is free speech. Another is the purging of bots on the platform. Musk also previously tweeted that he intends to “defeat the spam bots or die trying” once the deal goes through. To say that he’s putting the deal on hold is more than just sending mixed messages.
If our twitter bid succeeds, we will defeat the spam bots or die trying!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 21, 2022
The Guardian quotes John Colley, Associate Dean at Warwick Business School, as saying that bringing up bot numbers now may be “an excuse to withdraw gracefully”. He goes on to say that Musk may have just realised that the maths involving the cost and risk involved in making Twitter profitable just doesn’t quite add up the way he initially thought. Then there’s also the drop in Telsa shares, which is what Musk is using to partially pay for the acquisition.
For those who use Twitter as just simply another platform, this is probably just another interesting development. But for those who truly take stock, no pun intended, on what Elon Musk says he wants to do with Twitter, it will be a pretty bumpy weekend.
(Source: Elon Musk / Twitter, The Guardian)
