South African businessman Elon Musk announced this Friday that he is temporarily suspending the acquisition of Twitter, which he aims to pay $44,000 million. Details on the proportion of fake accounts on the social network are awaited. “The Twitter deal has been temporarily suspended. temporary”, The richest man in the world and the head of Tesla announced in the same social network.

He also stated in his post that what he expects are details that “support the calculation that fake/spam accounts represent less than 5% of users.”

After that message, the group’s stock fell 20% on electronic exchanges before the opening of the Wall Street Stock Exchange: it was just over $36 at noon. Well below the $54.2 per share suggested by the billionaire.

Elon Musk stops buying Twitter

It’s unclear whether this question will derail the deal. Shares of Twitter and Tesla rose in opposite directions: Shares of the social network lost 18%, while shares of the automaker Musk suggested to use to fund the deal gained 5%.

Musk has made the elimination of fake accounts and user transparency one of the main issues of his purchase, as he has made public his intention to protect the little bird’s social network.

Twitter acknowledged in a filing with the United States Securities Market Commission (SEC) that “there are inherent difficulties in measuring the usage and engagement” of the social network’s large number of aggregate accounts worldwide. He added that the metrics could be impacted by efforts to reduce malicious activity on the service, including spam, malicious automation and fake accounts.

In that sense, the company said it estimated, after internal review of an account sample, that the average number of false or spam accounts in the first quarter of 2022 “represented less than 5%” of active monthly users. quarter.

fake accounts and spam

However, he acknowledged that this estimation of fake or spam accounts “may not accurately represent the true number of such accounts.” This meant that the actual number of active fake or spam accounts “could be higher than anticipated”.

In its presentation of its first-quarter results, Twitter acknowledged an error in which it overestimated the calculation of active journal users monetized by nearly two million users from Q1 2019 to Q4 2021. accounts. He later clarified that “a mistake was made at the time” with the launch of a function that allowed multiple individual accounts to be linked in March 2019. Therefore, actions taken through the primary account caused all linked accounts to be counted as active users.

This is the second time Twitter has admitted to a similar calculation error in one of the market’s most closely watched variables. In 2017, he discovered that he had overestimated his active users for three years.

Twitter deal temporarily suspended, details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of usershttps://t.co/Y2t0QMuuyn

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 13, 2022

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