{"id":1477670,"date":"2022-05-17T08:45:43","date_gmt":"2022-05-17T12:45:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1477670"},"modified":"2022-05-17T09:01:55","modified_gmt":"2022-05-17T13:01:55","slug":"musk-doubt-about-spam-accounts-could-kill-twitter-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/musk-doubt-about-spam-accounts-could-kill-twitter-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"Musk: Doubt About Spam Accounts Could Kill Twitter Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fmusk-doubt-about-spam-accounts-could-kill-twitter-deal%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1477670&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" src=\"https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2022\/05\/musk.jpg?w=1200&#038;h=800&#038;ixlib=react-9.3.0\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>Will he or won\u2019t he?<\/p>\n<p>Billionaire Elon Musk turned the social media world upside when he swept in and scooped up millions of Twitter shares, then made a shocking move to buy the whole kit and caboodle for $44 billion. But first he wants to clear up a couple of things: fake and spam accounts on the platform.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c20% fake\/spam accounts, while 4 times what Twitter claims, could be *much* higher,\u201d he wrote on Twitter. \u201cMy offer was based on Twitter\u2019s SEC filings being accurate. Yesterday, Twitter\u2019s CEO publicly refused to show proof of <5%><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">20% fake\/spam accounts, while 4 times what Twitter claims, could be *much* higher.<\/p>\n<p>My offer was based on Twitter\u2019s SEC filings being accurate.<\/p>\n<p>Yesterday, Twitter\u2019s CEO publicly refused to show proof of <5%><\/p>\n<p>This deal cannot move forward until he does.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/elonmusk\/status\/1526465624326782976?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 17, 2022<\/a><\/p>\n<p><\/5%><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Later, Musk told attendees at a Miami conference that buying the social media giant for a lower price wasn\u2019t \u201cout of the question,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2022-05-16\/musk-says-twitter-bots-likely-account-for-at-least-20-of-users?srnd=premium&#038;sref=10lNAhZ9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-ylk=\"elm:context_link;itc:0\" data-rapid_p=\"15\" data-v9y=\"1\">reported<\/a>\u00a0Bloomberg.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCurrently what I\u2019m being told is that there\u2019s just no way to know the number of bots,\u201d Musk said at the conference. \u201cIt\u2019s like, as unknowable as the human soul.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But Musk did quantify what he thinks, estimating that at least 20% of Twitter\u2019s 229 million accounts are spam bots \u2014 and he said the number could be much higher.<\/p>\n<p>Musk had initially agreed to pay a 38% premium on shares when he negotiated a deal with the company\u2019s board in April. But on Friday, Musk suddenly announced the deal was \u201ctemporarily on hold\u201d because he said the number of bots on Twitter was far higher than the company claimed. The Tesla and SpaceX founder said a team of analysts would do their own research to find out the real number of fake and spam accounts.<\/p>\n<p>After Musk\u2019s tweets, Twitter said it hoped to complete the sale at the agreed-upon price \u201cas promptly as practicable.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>All the turmoil is pushing the price of Twitter stock down; shares fell by more than 8% after Musk\u2019s comments. Twitter was trading at $37.38 a share, far below what Musk agreed to pay \u2014 $54.20 a share.<\/p>\n<p>Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal on Monday tweeted that spam \u201charms the experience for real people on Twitter\u201d and that the company is \u201cstrongly incentivized to detect and remove as much spam as we possibly can, every single day.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnyone who suggests otherwise is just wrong,\u201d Agrawal tweeted. He also\u00a0denied claims that Twitter wasn\u2019t doing all it could do to get rid of automated accounts.<\/p>\n<p><em>Joseph Curl has covered politics for 35 years, including 12 years as White House correspondent for a national newspaper. He was also the a.m. editor of the Drudge Report for four years. Send tips to josephcurl@dailywire.com and follow him on Twitter @josephcurl.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><\/5%><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Will he or won\u2019t he?Billionaire Elon Musk turned the social media world upside when he swept in and scooped up millions of Twitter shares, then made a shocking move to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":159,"featured_media":1481547,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1477670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1477670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/159"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1477670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1477670\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1481547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1477670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1477670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1477670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}