ELON MUSK SAYS HIS PROPOSED TWITTER BUYOUT IS TEMPORARILY SUSPENDED
(Reuters) – Elon Musk said on Friday his planned $44 billion takeover of Twitter was on hold pending clarification of fake accounts and spam.
“Agreement is temporarily on hold pending details regarding calculations that fake accounts and spam actually represent less than 5% of users,” the Tesla founder and CEO said in a tweet.
After this announcement, the title Twitter fell 17.7% in pre-market trading on Wall Street, to 37.10 dollars, its lowest level since Elon Musk made his takeover offer at 54.20 dollars. per share last month.
Neither Twitter nor representatives of Elon Musk responded at the time to requests from Reuters.
The San Francisco-based company assured earlier this month that spam and fake accounts in the first quarter of 2022 represented less than 5% of its 229 million so-called “monetizable” active users, that is to say that can be exposed to advertising on the platform.
The social network also mentioned various risks that could affect its activity by the end of the takeover by Elon Musk, including the fact that advertisers could reduce their expenses.
Elon Musk has said that one of his priorities will be to remove spam (automated advertising accounts) from the platform.
He also announced this week his intention to lift the suspension of the account of former United States President Donald Trump, confirming his desire to reduce moderation on the platform.
(Report Nivedita Balu in Bangalore, French version Myriam Rivet and Tangi Salaün, edited by Bertrand Boucey and Kate Entringer)