Elon Musk says Twitter deal can’t happen until bot dispute is resolved
“My offer was based on Twitter’s SEC filings being accurate,” Musk tweeted. “Yesterday, Twitter’s CEO publicly refused to show proof of <5%. This deal cannot move forward until he does."
Twitter’s shares were down 1.7% in premarket trading Tuesday. The stock has erased all its gains in the weeks since Musk disclosed his stake the company and is now trading at $36.80 per share — well below Musk’s offer price of $54.20 per share.
“The bot issue at the end of the day … feels more to us like the “dog ate the homework” excuse to bail on the Twitter deal or talk down a lower price,” Dan Ives and John Katsingris, analysts at Wedbush Securities, wrote in a note on Monday.
In his Twitter thread, Agrawal said most spam campaigns on Twitter use a combination of humans and automation, rather than being primarily led by bots. Parsing through legitimate and fake accounts can be complicated, he said.
“We shared an overview of the estimation process with Elon a week ago and look forward to continuing the conversation with him, and all of you,” he added.
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