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• Musk accused Twitter of “resisting and thwarting” his right to information about fake accounts
• Billionaire said he does not believe in Twitter’s “lax testing methodologies” in calculating spam bots
Elon Musk on Monday warned that he might terminate the $44 billion offer to acquire Twitter Inc (NYSE: TWTR) if the social media company failed to provide data on spam and fake accounts.
In a letter to Twitter, the billionaire said that he “believes Twitter is transparently refusing to comply with its obligations under the merger agreement, which is causing further suspicion that the company is withholding the requested data.”
Musk has previously threatened to walk away from the deal in a tweet; however, it is the first time he has sent a letter to the microblogging platform.
The billionaire also accused Twitter of “resisting and thwarting” his right to information about fake accounts on the platform, calling it a “clear material breach” of the terms of their merger agreement.
Shares of Twitter fell more than 5.6% at $37.91, which is a steep discount to Musk’s offer of $54.20 per share, suggesting that investors don’t expect the deal to close at the agreed price.
Dispute over spam bots
Last month, the billionaire said he would put the deal “temporarily on hold” and would wait for Twitter to provide data on the proportion of its fake accounts.
In response, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal said the most advanced spam campaigns used combinations of humans and automation and could not be performed externally as it required both public and private information that the company would not be able to share.
Musk, in his letter, said that he needed the data to conduct his own analysis and did not believe in Twitter’s “lax testing methodologies.”
Picture Credit: WSJ
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