The initial excitement felt by online conservatives after Elon Musk announced his acquisition of Twitter, a social media platform run by far-left activists, is beginning to wane as it appears the Tesla CEO has major concerns with their daily operations.
Musk is questioning the Twitter product as a whole, claiming execs are misrepresenting the number of spam accounts currently active on the platform. Without an accurate reading on active spam accounts, Twitter is unable to provide advertisers with proper estimates, and thus is essentially providing a faulty service.
This impasse has caused Musk to reconsider the entire deal, but this latest move by Twitter signals a willingness to comply with the Tesla CEO’s demands.
Twitter recently reversed an initial decision and will be giving Elon Musk access to their internal data.
The decision comes days after Musk submitted an SEC filing demanding access to the company’s internal data and threatening to withdraw his deal to purchase the social platform. The billionaire will now have access to the company’s “firehose” of internal data, the Washington Post reported.
This source of internal data was previously available to two dozen companies that pay for access to a database containing a real-time record of tweets, location data, and private information from the relevant accounts. The companies with access to this data were not identified.
Musk could be given access to this data as early as next week.
Twitter’s leaders are reportedly skeptical as to whether access to this data would provide Musk additional insights into his allegations that 20% of Twitter’s user base is fake or spam bots. The data have been available to the companies to help them identify trends. Now, some analysts believe Musk wants to use the “bots” as an excuse to back out of the deal or to seek a lower price.
Musk announced on May 13 that his deal to purchase Twitter was “temporarily on hold” due to the company’s low estimate of spam bots. He has emphasized this point, claiming that the social platform’s user base consists of at least 20% bots or spam accounts. Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal has attempted to explain the company’s approach to identifying spam accounts, including using private information to determine if accounts are indeed bots or fake. Agrawal’s words did little to convince Musk that he was wrong.
If Musk attempted to end the deal, it would likely lead either to a lengthy lawsuit with Twitter or a $1 billion fee.
social media analytics firm GlobalData appears to confirm Musk’s skepticism about Twitter’s spam bot estimates, according to new data.
Author: Monica Hedren
