Musk sows doubt over his Twitter takeover

Elon Musk caused chaos over his takeover bid for Twitter on Friday, first claiming it was “temporarily on hold” and then maintaining he is “still committed” to the deal, sending the social media giant into a tailspin.

The billionaire initially sent an early tweet saying the $44bn (about R713bn) deal is pending until he receives more information about the proportion of fake accounts on the social media site, which sent Twitter stock tumbling as much as 25% in premarket trading.

A few hours later, he sent another tweet saying he is “still committed” to the deal. Twitter’s shares recouped some of their losses but were down about 10%.

Musk said he was waiting for details on a recent filing from Twitter that fake accounts on the social media platform comprise less than 5% of its users.

Twitter said in its latest quarterly results “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”.

However, it said it applied “significant judgment” to its latest estimate, and the true number could be higher.

Fighting fake accounts has been a cornerstone of Musk’s bid to reform Twitter. In a statement announcing his deal to buy the company last month, he revealed he wanted to defeat spam bots, authenticate all humans and make its algorithms open source.

Musk has also said he’s likely to make the platform a bastion of free speech, taking the guardrails off 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 has policies meant to combat them.