The Tesla and Space X founder has clarified that he was still committed to the all-cash deal under which Twitter’s shareholders will get $54.2 per share to allow the social media company to become a privately held entity
Elon Musk seeks details about spam/fake accounts on Twitter. (Credit: Edar from Pixabay)
Elon Musk revealed that he has put the previously announced $44bn acquisition of Twitter on hold as he seeks details of fake accounts on the microblogging platform.
However, the Tesla and Space X founder clarified that he was still committed to the acquisition.
The American billionaire, in a tweet, said: “Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users.”
Musk revealed that his team will take a random sample of 100 followers of Twitter. He also invited others to undertake the same sampling process and see what they discover.
The Tesla founder in subsequent tweets accused that the algorithm in the social media platform is manipulating users on what is shown in their feed. He also claimed that there are potential bugs in Twitter’s code, while suggesting that open source is the way to go forward for solving trust as well as efficacy.
Musk tweeted: “I’m not suggesting malice in the algorithm, but rather that it’s trying to guess what you might want to read and, in doing so, inadvertently manipulate/amplify your viewpoints without you realizing this is happening.”
Responding to the accusations, Jack Dorsey, the co-founder and former CEO of Twitter said that the algorithm in Twitter was designed simply for saving the time of users when they are away from app for a while. Dorsey suggested that the pull-to-refresh gesture also goes back to reverse chronology.
In late April 2022, Musk announced the all-cash deal to acquire Twitter. The billionaire is offering a price of $54.2 per share to the shareholders of the publicly-listed social media company.
Twitter recently reported its Q1 2022 results with its net income being $513.28m, an increase of 655% compared to the same quarter of the previous year. Its Q1 2022 revenue saw a 16% growth year-over-year to $1.2bn.