Last month, Elon Musk proposed to acquire Twitter for a whopping $44 billion. But a deal that huge can’t get done without some drama, can it? Last week, Musk said his bid to buy Twitter was “temporarily on hold” pending details about how many spam and fake accounts are on the platform.
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
Twitter CEO, Parag Agrawal, addressed the issue through a long thread that he posted yesterday. He said, “Let’s talk about spam. And let’s do so with the benefit of data, facts, and context…”
Let’s talk about spam. And let’s do so with the benefit of data, facts, and context…
— Parag Agrawal (@paraga) May 16, 2022
He explained the process of Twitter’s “human review” of potential spam, to which Musk replied, “Have you tried just calling them?”
Have you tried just calling them?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 16, 2022
Parag Agrawal said Twitter’s estimate of spam accounts for the last four quarters was “well under 5%”, and has stayed the same since 2013. He also said that it cannot be reproduced externally, given the need to use both public and private information to determine whether an account is a spam. To which, Elon Musk replied with a poop emoji.
💩
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 16, 2022
Parag Agrawal also said, “You can’t build a set of rules to detect spam today, and hope they will still work tomorrow. They will not.”
Me telling my
— Prayag (@theprayagtiwari) May 16, 2022
feelings.
To my crush. My crush pic.twitter.com/YpjfgTYCYf
Analysts interpret Musk’s messages as an attempt to pull out of the deal or to try to force a lower price. Whatever be the reason, the Twitter acquisition is getting more and more dramatic every day.