Will Musk actually buy Twitter?
On Friday morning (May 13), Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted that the Twitter deal is on “hold,” causing fresh speculation that the $44 billion deal may not proceed.
His Friday tweet indicating the deal was on hold also revealed his desire to uncover the number of spam and fake accounts on the platform, something he has been vocal about since he made his attempts at an acquisition public.
Previously, Musk has called into question Twitter’s “spam bots” that imitate real people, calling into question whether Twitter was underreporting the issue.
However, in regulatory filings, Twitter disclosed that for the next two years, the tech giant’s bot estimates would be low, leading some analysts to speculate Musk’s sudden emphasis on the bot issue may be an attempt to reason backing out of the deal after making it rather public.
In Friday’s tweet, Musk announced the pause, stating, “Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users.”
Later on Friday, Musk would tweet that he is “still committed to acquisition.”
Since Musk announced his plan to acquire Twitter, Tesla stocks have lost nearly a quarter of their value, which could make purchasing Twitter far more expensive for the billionaire CEO, who has been selling his Tesla shares to fund the deal.
In early April, Tesla shares were $1,150 but had dropped to $769.59 by Friday.
