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Elon Musk buyout uncertain, 1 mn Twitter spam accounts 'removed daily': Reports
Elon Musk had proposed to buy Twitter for $44 billion earlier this year.
The most closely watched business deal in the world of technology in the recent months is back in public glare along with a concern that Elon Musk has been persistently sharing - bot accounts on Twitter. About 4 per cent drop in the shares of the social media giant followed the latest report on Thursday that has cast fresh doubts about the prospects of the $44 billion buyout.
A new report by the Washington Post has underlined that the deal seems to have been plunged into danger after Musk’s team said that Twitter could not verify its figures on the spam accounts. The discussions on the deal have “stopped”, people familiar with the matter were cited as saying in the report, putting the acquisition by the Tesla chief “in serious jeopardy”.
“Twitter has and will continue to cooperatively share information with Mr. Musk to consummate the transaction in accordance with the terms of the merger agreement. We believe this agreement is in the best interest of all shareholders. We intend to close the transaction and enforce the merger agreement at the agreed price and terms,” a company spokesperson was quoted as saying by Bloomberg after the Post report created ripples in the market. The statements by Elon Musk - the world’s richest person - have in the past led to a drop in the Twitter share prices ever since the deal was announced earlier this year.
Despite being given access to internal data, Musk’s team too has not been able to give an exact figure of bots on the microblogging site, used by billions across the planet.
Meanwhile, Twitter has said it removes 1 million spam accounts daily amid speculation over uncertainty over the deal, news agency AP reported.
Musk had threatened to pull back the offer if it was not proven than less than 5 per cent of the total users of Twitter were spam accounts.
In estimates to the the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for years, Twitter has been referring to the figures on bots, albeit, with a disclaimer that the numbers may be higher than what was estimated.
(With inputs from Bloomberg, AFP and AP)
