Elon Musk Declares $44 Billion Twitter Takeover ‘On Hold’

  • Date: 13-May-2022
  • Source: Time
  • Sector:Economy
  • Country:Qatar
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Elon Musk Declares $44 Billion Twitter Takeover ‘On Hold’







Elon Musk tweeted that his $44 billion takeover of Twitter Inc. is “temporarily on hold” as he awaits data on its proportion of fake accounts, sending the social media giant into a tailspin.



Twitter slumped 20% in pre-market trading after Musk tweeted the deal was suspended pending details on the company’s assertions that fake accounts contributed less than 5% of its users.



Twitter said in a previous filing “that the average of false or spam accounts during the first quarter of 2022 represented fewer than 5% of our monthly daily active users during the quarter.”











Musk said in a statement announcing his deal to buy Twitter last month that he wants to defeat spam bots, authenticate all humans and make its algorithms open source. Musk has also said he’d like to make the platform a bastion of free speech, taking the guardrails off of content moderation.



Bots are currently allowed on Twitter, though under the company’s policy, such accounts are supposed to indicate that they’re automated. The platform has even launched a label for “good” bots, such as @tinycarebot, an account that tweets self-care reminders. Spam bots, however, are not permitted, and the company