DIGEST –
Tesla CEO Elon Musk made the strongest suggestion yet on Monday that he wants to pay Twitter less than his $44 billion offer made last month.
Musk told a tech conference in Miami that a possible deal at a lower price wouldn’t be out of the question, according to a report by Bloomberg News, which said it had watched a live video of the conference conducted by the company. posted by a Twitter user.
Also at All In Summit, Musk estimated that at least 20% of the 229 million Twitter accounts were spam bots, a percentage he said was on the low end of his assessment, according to the report.
The appearance comes hours after Musk started mocking Twitter CEO Paraj Agrawal, who posted a series of tweets explaining the company’s efforts to combat bots and how it has consistently estimated that at least More than 5% of Twitter accounts are fake.
All in all, the events of the day have bolstered the theory from analysts that Musk wants to pull out of the deal or is looking for a lower price, largely due to the massive drop in the value of Tesla stock. some of which he has pledged to finance the acquisition of Twitter.
Twitter shares closed Monday down just over 8% at $37.39, well below stock levels just before Musk revealed he was Twitter’s largest shareholder. Musk made an offer to buy back Twitter for $54.20 per share on April 14.
On Friday, Musk tweeted that his plan to acquire Twitter had been put on hold because he was trying to determine the number of fake accounts on the social media platform. Tesla and SpaceX executives said the pending hold details Twitter’s calculation that fake accounts have less than 5% of its users.
In tweets on Monday, Agrawal admitted Twitter isn’t perfect at catching spam. He wrote that each quarter, the company estimated less than 5% spam. “Our estimates are based on multiple human assessments of thousands of randomly sampled accounts, consistently over time,” wrote Agrawal.
Estimates for the past four quarters were all below 5%, he wrote. “The margin of error on our estimates gives us confidence in our public statements each quarter.”
Musk, using his favorite platform, responded with a smiling emoji “poop,” then asked how Twitter’s advertisers know what they’re getting for their money. .
Tesla shares closed Monday down nearly 6% at $724.37. They have lost about a third of their value since the trading day before Musk revealed the stake on his Twitter.
Musk did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment. All In Summit said in an email that it will post a video of Musk’s appearance in the coming days.
