Elon Musk has temporarily withdrawn his offer to buy Twitter. The reason: anticipation of “pending details” regarding the calculation mechanism behind the estimate of less than 5% fake/spam accounts on the social media platform.
Another week comes and goes, and another installment of Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover saga takes place. This time, the problem seems to be the billionaire’s concerns about the number of fake and spam accounts on the social media platform.
On May 13, Musk shared a Tweet that the deal for the acquisition of Twitter was temporarily on hold. This decision comes in the wake of the latter who released a report that fake and spam accounts make up “less than 5%” of all active Twitter users.
Twitter certainly doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to counting its users. The company has repeatedly made “technical” mistakes when calculating the number of daily users, which in turn has led to overestimations of the number of people who actually use the social media platform on a daily basis.
However, this is no secret. Twitter has officially released this information, acknowledging that the algorithm used has led to an overestimation of daily users for at least three consecutive years.
In light of this, it makes sense why many (including Musk) approach Twitter stats with a healthy dose of skepticism. Given the staggering $44 billion that Musk has offered to pay, it’s only natural that he wants to make sure he gets enough bang for his buck.
This is just the last hurdle that the acquisition, which started some time ago, will have to be overcome. Musk then reaffirmed his determination to finalize the deal. When that will happen is an entirely different matter.