Elon Musk

Tesla CEO and world's richest person expressed concerns about presence of fake accounts on platform. Elon Musk is seen displayed on a smartphone with a ...

And some of the spam accounts which are actually the most dangerous – and cause the most harm to our users – can look totally legitimate on the surface,” he wrote. “The hard challenge is that many accounts which look fake superficially are actually real people. Agrawal explained that tackling automated spam accounts was a “dynamic” process that required fighting “sophisticated and hard to catch” actors.

In its filings, Twitter claims fewer than 5% of accounts on the platform are fake or spam accounts. Musk disputes this figure and estimates spam and fake ...

Musk, the world’s wealthiest person, put the deal “ on hold” last week in order to get more information on the number of fake and spam accounts on Twitter, an issue he said will be one of his “ top” priorities leading the company. The true number of fake and spam accounts on Twitter. Musk did not provide details on how he reached 20% and Twitter does not open its data troves for public inspection. Twitter on Tuesday said it is committed to seeing the deal with Musk through at the agreed price and terms, Reuters reported.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk says his deal to buy Twitter can't move forward unless the company shows public proof that less than 5% of the accounts on the social ...

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Tesla CEO Elon Musk blasted Joe Biden on Monday, saying the president is someone who just reads a teleprompter and that his administration has failed to get ...

This administration seems to not have the drive to just get s--- done. Musk, who says he has overwhelmingly voted for Democrats, has repeatedly criticized the president. The path to power is the path to the teleprompter.

Mr. Musk called on Twitter to provide more data about the number of spam and fake accounts on the social media site.

Mr. Musk’s deal with Twitter also has a nondisparagement clause that prohibits him from tweeting negatively about the transaction. Last Friday, he tweeted that his purchase of Twitter was “temporarily on hold” until he could get more details about the volume of spam and fake accounts on the platform. Tech company stocks have taken a beating since Mr. Musk first announced his acquisition of Twitter earlier this month. The two sides have so far continued as if there is a deal. On Monday, Parag Agrawal, Twitter’s chief executive, posted a lengthy thread detailing how the company calculates its number of bots. It is also below where Twitter traded before Mr. Musk initially revealed that he had bought a big stake in the company, the opening move in what has become an increasingly convoluted takeover saga. He later followed up saying he was still “ committed” to the deal. “So you know, at the end of the day, acquiring it has to be fixable with a reasonable time frame and without revenues collapsing along the way.” Renegotiating a deal would not be easy. Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest man, capped what seemed an improbable attempt by the famously mercurial billionaire to buy Twitter for roughly $44 billion. In a tweet published at 3:32 a.m. Eastern time on Tuesday, Mr. Musk said the figure could be well above 20 percent, without providing information to support the claim. Here’s how the deal unfolded:

Social media group says it is committed to 'agreed price' on day Tesla chief raises prospect of reducing offer.

How do you regulate a man worth more than $200 billion who thinks he knows better than everyone else? The simple answer is: You don't.

In 2020, for example, the company conducted a brief test flight of its forthcoming Mars rocket, called Starship, without giving the FAA proper documentation or assessments for the risks to "public health and safety and gave up his position as chairman of Tesla, although he kept the CEO title, which the SEC had threatened to strip him of as well. Traditional automakers issue recalls when they discover a flaw in the design or construction of a car. But the company moved forward anyway. Musk is still seething over that settlement he signed with the SEC, claiming he only did so because banks might otherwise have cut off Tesla's funding and forced the automaker into bankruptcy. "But if you look at when the SEC enforces late filing, it's relatively rare.

Elon Musk continues to badger Twitter over its metrics and is calling on the SEC to look into the company's user numbers.

"An error was made at that time, such that actions taken via the primary account resulted in all linked accounts being counted as mDAU." Musk agreed to buy Twitter last month for $44 billion, but has since said the deal is on pause as he looks into bots, spam and fakes. Twitter's stock has given up all its gains since Musk first disclosed his 9% stake in the company early last month.

Twitter's latest filing raises fresh questions about whether the billionaire Tesla chief executive complied with US disclosure rules. Any investor owning more ...

Four days later, Mr Musk backed out of a plan to join Twitter’s board and instead told its directors that he would make an offer to take it private. Mr Musk revealed he had become Twitter’s largest shareholder on April 4th but indicated he would be a passive investor, declaring in a filing that he had “no present plans or intentions” to make a bid. Last week Mr Agrawal fired two senior leaders and announced a pause on most hiring. If the deal falls apart for other reasons, Mr Musk would owe a $1 billion termination fee. Twitter stock was trading 3 per cent higher by lunchtime in New York on Tuesday at $38.63. Mr Musk did not respond to a request for comment.

The Tesla chief says the deal cannot go ahead unless the platform proves that fewer than 5% of users are bots.

Vanderbilt’s Ricks adds: “If Musk isn’t willing to close at $54.20 and if the parties can’t reach a revised deal or settlement, Twitter will very likely sue for specific performance.”Twitter, for its part, remains committed despite Musk’s behaviour. Section 9.9 of the agreement entitles Twitter to “specific performance”, whereby Musk has to pay up if he still has the debt-financing in place and Twitter still wants to close the deal. “The remedy – a termination fee or specific performance is at the election of the company, not Musk,” he said. In one exceptional case in the state of Delaware – the jurisdiction of the Twitter deal – a judge allowed a company to scrap a deal because a whistleblower revealed fraud at the selling business. Musk could argue that, if it transpires Twitter has much higher-than-expected fake or spam account numbers, it constitutes a “material adverse effect” and he should be allowed to walk away from the agreement. The deal agreement not only includes a $1bn break fee if Musk does quit, but Twitter can also enact a clause that could force Musk to complete the deal at $54.20 a share.

Elon Musk's Twitter acquisition is apparently on hold, pending proof he'll accept about what impact bots have on its daily active user numbers.

His quarrel with them has focused on their attempts to enforce a consent decree he agreed to in 2018 over the “funding secured” tweets about taking Tesla private. Joke or not, Twitter has had troubles with accurate metrics and recently admitted it had been overcounting daily users for years. So does Elon Musk want to buy Twitter or not?

The deal to buy Twitter can't "move forward" without proof of spam account numbers, Mr Musk says.

He said "there is some chance it might be over 90% of daily active users". Is it a convenient peg on which to hang a renegotiation? He's making a big deal about fake accounts. Elon Musk has doubled down on his position that his deal to buy the social network is on ice while the actual amount of spambots and accounts operating on it is investigated. On Tuesday, Mr Musk said Twitter boss Parag Agrawal had "publicly refused to show proof" that fewer than 5% of its accounts were fake, and said the deal "cannot move forward" until Mr Agrawal does show proof. Elon Musk has said his $44bn deal to buy Twitter may be in jeopardy due to a disagreement over the number of fake accounts on the social media platform.

Twitter Inc has published its account of its deal negotiations with Elon Musk, showing that he opted out of asking the questions about the social media ...

He has yet to inform Twitter that he wants to renegotiate the deal. Twitter shares were trading around $37.55 this afternoon, a discount of more than 30% to the $54.20 per share deal price. Twitter's top lawyer, Vijaya Gadde, would be paid $30m. Mr Musk also told Twitter that he contemplated starting a competitor, according to the proxy statement. Mr Musk is contractually obligated to pay a $1 billion break-up fee if he does not complete the deal, but Twitter can sue for "specific performance" to force Mr Musk to complete a deal and obtain a settlement from him as a result. The proxy statement makes no mention of threats Mr Musk has tweeted about not going ahead with the deal if he does not get to the bottom of how many spam accounts are on the platform.

The billionaire is raising doubts about Twitter's publicly disclosed data on spam and fake accounts.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission will review the deal, although the regulatory agency generally lacks the power to stop corporate mergers, and shareholders will vote on approval at Twitter’s agm on May 25. On Tuesday, Mr Musk said he would only go ahead with his offer if Twitter can prove the number is less than the 5% the social media company has reported. In its latest statement, Twitter said it’s “committed to completing the transaction on the agreed price and terms as promptly as practicable”. The board disclosed all relevant details related to Mr Musk’s offer, including how he intends to finance the purchase, the behind the scenes events between the billionaire entrepreneur and Twitter’s executive leadership that led to the offer, and what will happen to shares held by Twitter’s employees and executives if the offer is finalised.

Musk earlier tweeted that his plan to buy Twitter was on hold as he tried to pinpoint the number of fake accounts on the social media platform.

Musk estimated Monday that at least 20% of Twitter’s 229 million accounts are spam bots, a percentage he said was at the low end of his assessment. “The chances of a deal ultimately getting done is not looking good now,” Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives, who covers both Twitter and Tesla, said in a research note. “Their role is trying to help ensure that investors are getting a fair deal, to make sure the information out there is accurate.” “A material adverse change is often the key to your ability to renegotiate the deal,” Spatt said. The bot problem also reflects a longtime fixation for Musk, one of Twitter’s most active celebrity users, whose name and likeness are often mimicked by fake accounts promoting cryptocurrency scams. Correct or not, Musk’s latest complaint about the bot count hits upon a sore point for Twitter, which has long faced criticism over a lack of transparency in its bot numbers. That followed Musk’s Friday tweet that the deal was on hold pending more bot details — after which Twitter shares plunged by nearly 10% — and his Monday comments at a Miami conference suggesting he wanted a lower price for the company. In his tweet Tuesday, Musk said that “20% fake/spam accounts, while 4 times what Twitter claims, could be much higher. It defines that as a change that negatively affects Twitter’s business or financial conditions. Tiffany sued to enforce the deal, and LVMH lashed back. Experts say Musk can’t unilaterally place the deal on hold, although that hasn’t stopped him from acting as though he can. The sharp turnaround by the world’s richest man makes little sense except as a method to scuttle or renegotiate a deal that’s becoming increasingly costly for him, experts said.

Who wants to own Twitter? Maybe Elon Musk doesn't.

We intend to close the transaction and enforce the merger agreement." Key words: "Enforce the merger agreement." But what if Musk pays to make this deal go away? There is a "60%+ chance from our view Musk ultimately walks from the deal and pays the breakup fee," analyst Dan Ives said Tuesday. The Bloomberg Opinion columnist said "it is important to be clear" that Musk "is lying:" Disputes about spam bots "are not why he is backing away from the deal, as you can tell from the fact that the spam bots are why he did the deal." The board, in other words, wants to rid itself of Twitter. I obtained a new statement from the board Tuesday night that read, "The Board and Mr. Musk agreed to a transaction at $54.20 per share.

There's a tension between facilitating free and fair debate on social media, and businesses' bottom line. And it must be resolved with the public interest ...

As US legislators contemplate social media regulation, addressing algorithmic audiencing must be on the table. Algorithmic audiencing constitutes a breach of this privilege. Algorithmic interference in who gets to hear which speech serves to directly undermine this free and fair exchange of ideas. Only in the past five years has algorithmic audiencing really become a widespread issue. Those who speak to the algorithm achieve the widest circulation of their ideas. Social media platforms don’t just present users with the posts of those they follow, in the order they’re posted.