Former President Donald Trump weighed in on the news that billionaire Elon Musk's deal with Twitter is on the rocks over the percentage of its users that are fake accounts.
In a tweet Friday morning, Musk said the $44 billion deal is "temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users." He linked to a Reuters report detailing a Twitter filing that said spam accounts were "fewer than 5% of its monetizable daily active users during the first quarter." The company said 229 million users were shown advertising in this period.
Trump surmised the only thing likely holding Musk back from backing out of the deal is a "ridiculous Billion Dollar breakup fee."
"There is no way Elon Musk is going to buy Twitter at such a ridiculous price, especially since realizing it is a company largely based on BOTS or Spam Accounts," he said on Truth Social. "Fake anyone? By the time you get rid of them, if that can even be done, what do you have? Not much? If it weren't for the ridiculous Billion Dollar breakup fee, Elon would have already been long gone. Just my opinion, but Truth Social is MUCH better than Twitter and is absolutely exploding, incredible engagement!"
BREAKING: Donald Trump weighs in on @ElonMusk’s Twitter bid pic.twitter.com/pZ4b34NSzB
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) May 13, 2022
Musk followed up his initial tweet expressing his continued interest in seeing the deal go through.
Still committed to acquisition
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 13, 2022