DIn a stock market document published on Monday, Elon Musk assures that Twitter “actively resists” its requests for information on bots and spam. The billionaire, head of Tesla and SpaceX, sees this resistance as a clear violation of the social network’s obligations as part of its takeover bid. “Mr. Musk reserves all resulting rights, including his right not to consummate the transaction and his right to terminate the merger agreement,” reads a letter to Twitter’s chief legal officer, posted on the site of the American authority of the financial markets (SEC).
After filing an offer to buy the social network for 44 billion dollars in April, the multi-billionaire boss of Tesla has, on several occasions, questioned the data transmitted by Twitter on spam and fake accounts and the measures taken to limit proliferation. According to Twitter, these account for less than 5% of registered accounts.
A long debate around fake accounts
“Twitter’s latest offer to simply provide additional details relating to its testing methodologies, whether through written documents or verbal explanations, is tantamount to denying Mr. Musk’s claims for data.” he writes in the letter. However, it is also affirmed, the entrepreneur needs more information to prepare the transition and finalize the financing of the operation.
After previous criticisms of Elon Musk, the boss of the social network Parag Agrawal had split in mid-May of a long explanation on the measures taken to fight against fake accounts. Parag Agrawal had notably indicated that Twitter’s figures, according to which less than 5% of the platform’s accounts are fake, were “based on multiple reproductions of human analyzes of accounts, which are randomly selected”.
The whimsical entrepreneur had responded to these explanations with an emoji in the shape of poop. “How can advertisers know what they are really paying? he also tweeted. “This is a fundamental question for the financial health of Twitter. This new episode in the saga of the takeover of Twitter comes after the expiry, Friday, of the deadline granted to the American authorities of competition to launch a thorough examination of the operation. They did not seize the file, thus leaving the field free to continue the finalization of the transaction.