Elon Musk on Friday temporarily put his $44 billion Twitter deal on hold, citing pending details to support the calculation that spam and fake accounts actually make up less than 5% of users. Shares of the social media company fell 17.7% in premarket trading at $37.10, the lowest level since Musk announced his stake in the company in early April and subsequently made a “best and last” offer to it for $54.20 per share. The implied probability of the deal closing at the agreed price fell below 50% for the first time on Tuesday, when Twitter stock fell below $46.75.
Twitter earlier this month estimated that fake or spam accounts made up less than 5% of its monetizable daily active users in the first quarter, when it recorded 229 million users who were shown ads / fake accounts actually make up less than 5% of users ‘ Musk tweeted on Friday. Musk, the world’s richest man and a self-proclaimed free speech absolutist, had said one of his priorities would be removing “spam bots” from the platform.
Twitter Moderation Policy
Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Musk’s representatives or his company Tesla were not immediately available for comment. The social media company had said it faced several risks pending the finalization of the deal with Musk, including whether advertisers would continue to spend money on Twitter amid “potential uncertainty surrounding future plans and strategies.” Musk has the moderation policy criticized by Twitter. He has said he wants Twitter’s algorithm to prioritize public tweets and opposed too much leverage on the service for advertisers. Earlier this week, he said he would reverse former US President Donald Trump’s Twitter ban if he buys the social media platform, signaling his intention to stop moderating the site.
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