Elon Musk placed his $44 billion purchase of Twitter Inc on hold on May 13, claiming a lack of evidence in support of his assessment that spam and bogus accounts account for fewer than 5% of users.
In premarket trading, shares of the social networking business plunged 17.7% to $37.10, the lowest since Mr. Musk revealed his position in the company in early April and made a “best and last” bid to take it private for $54.20 per share.
On Tuesday, when Twitter shares dipped below $46.75, the implied probability of the deal closing at the agreed price fell below 50% for the first time. Twitter estimated earlier this month that bogus or spam accounts accounted for less than 5% of its monetisable daily active users in the first quarter, when it had 229 million users served advertisements.
Twitter deal temporarily on hold
Elon Musk tweeted on Friday, “Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting computation that spam/fake accounts do indeed constitute less than 5% of users.”
Mr. Musk, the world’s richest man and self-proclaimed free speech absolutist, has stated that removing “spambots” from the platform would be one of his top goals. A request for comment from Twitter was not immediately returned. Mr. Musk’s team and Tesla Inc were unavailable for comment at the time of publication.
Until the agreement with Mr. Musk is finalized, the social media business has stated it faces various risks, including whether advertisers will continue to spend money on Twitter due to “possible uncertainty over future intentions and strategy.”
Twitter’s moderation policy has been criticized by Musk
Twitter’s moderation policy has been criticised by Elon Musk. He has stated that he wants Twitter’s algorithm to prioritise public tweets and that he opposes giving advertisers too much power on the platform. He said earlier this week that if he acquires Twitter, he will lift the ban on former US President Donald Trump, suggesting his aim to reduce the site’s moderation.