Billionaire Elon Musk tweeted Friday morning that the Twitter deal hit a snag.
“Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users,” he tweeted, linking to a Reuters article.
Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of usershttps://t.co/Y2t0QMuuyn
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 13, 2022
According to the report, “Twitter Inc (TWTR.N) estimated in a filing on Monday that false or spam accounts represented fewer than 5% of its monetizable daily active users during the first quarter.”
Musk, who bought Twitter last month for $44 billion, said a top priority for him would be the elimination of “spam bots.”
"Twitter said in the filing it faced several risks until the deal with Musk is closed, such as whether advertisers would continue to spend on Twitter and 'potential uncertainty regarding our future plans and strategy,'" Reuters reported.
Musk followed up his tweet expressing his continued interest that the deal goes through.
"Still committed to acquisition," he said.
Still committed to acquisition
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 13, 2022
Probability that the deal goes through fell considerably after Musk's tweet.
The implied probability of the deal closing at the agreed price fell below 50% for the first time on Tuesday. Musk, a self-proclaimed free speech absolutist, had said that one of his priorities would be to remove 'spam bots' from the platform https://t.co/QuW0v7inpU
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 13, 2022
Twitter shares also fell in pre-market trading.
Twitter shares fell 17.7% to $37.10 in premarket trading, their lowest level since Musk disclosed his stake in the company in early April and subsequently made a ‘best and final' offer to take it private for $54.20 per share pic.twitter.com/0hfVF7iAWP
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 13, 2022