Elon Musk’s $44 billion bid to buy Twitter has been put on hold while he investigates fraudulent accounts, according to Twitter’s CEO. Parag Agrawal defended the firm’s estimations that spam accounts accounted for less than 5% of users in a series of tweets.
Mr Musk answered with a poo emoji before going on to say that Twitter was underestimating the figure.
Analysts have theorised that Mr Musk is attempting to renegotiate the deal’s price or walk away.
Those rumours were fueled even more on Monday, when Bloomberg reported that Mr Musk had indicated at a tech conference that a lower-cost transaction was “not out of the question.”
He also said that the number of spam accounts could be four times what Twitter claims.
Mr. Agrawal backed the company’s claim, saying he would address it “with the advantage of data, facts, and context.”
He claimed that the corporation used a mix of public and private data to decide which accounts were legitimate, with random samples being reviewed every few months. He went on to say that Twitter suspends about 500,000 questionable accounts per day and locks millions more.
Mr Agrawal stated that the margins of error are well within its estimate of spam accounts representing less than 5% of daily users.
Last week, he claimed, the company gave Mr Musk a “overview” of its procedures.
He said, “We… look forward to continuing the conversation with him and all of you.”
Last week, Mr Musk announced that the deal had been put on hold for information “proving [the] calculation that spam/fake accounts do fact comprise less than 5% of users.”
Later, he stated that he was “still dedicated to [the] acquisition,” to which Twitter board chairman Bret Taylor replied, “We are too.”
However, the stock market, which has seen weeks of instability strip billions off the value of numerous companies, is sceptical that the agreement will be implemented as planned.
After Mr Agrawal’s tweets, the price of a Twitter share has dropped below $38, and it has dropped even more on Monday.
That’s less than the stock’s value before Mr Musk announced his interest in the company, and far less than the $54.20 per share he’s offered.
The takeover was approved by Twitter’s board of directors last month, but the deal was not expected to close for months.
A huge drop in Tesla shares, which were key to Mr Musk’s financing of the deal, as well as wider market falls, according to Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, has caused Mr Musk to get “cold feet.”
“At the end of the day, the bot issue was known… and feels more to us like the ‘dog ate my homework’ excuse to back out of the Twitter arrangement or negotiate a lesser price,” he said.
Mr Agrawal recognised the prospect of the deal falling through in a series of tweets last week about his intention to remove top executives.
“While I expect the deal to close,” he added, “we must be prepared for all circumstances and always do what is best for Twitter.”