Twitter Deal may be in Jeopardy, Elon Musk Expected to take ‘Drastic Action’

On a call Thursday with executives aimed to shed more light on the company’s fake and bot accounts, Twitter said it removes 1 million spam accounts each day.

Twitter claimed on the same call that spam accounts represent well below 5% of its active user base.

Elon Musk has been trying to get a grasp on the real number of fake accounts on Twitter. Musk has claimed that Twitter has significantly underestimated the number of fake accounts, a number Twitter puts at 5% of all accounts.

In an effort to quelch the billionaire’s questions, Twitter offered Musk access to its raw data on hundreds of millions of daily tweets last month. The “firehose” of data did not include IP addresses, phone numbers, and locations which would help misidentify real accounts as spam.

According to The Washington Post, Musk’s team is expected to take “drastic action” after concluding that Twitter’s figures on spam accounts are not verifiable.

Thursday Musk responded to a tweet asking, “how many new real accounts does it [Twitter] have per day i wonder”.

Musk replied, “That is indeed the real question”

That is indeed the real question

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 7, 2022

Twitter has stood its ground on the deal saying, “We believe this agreement is in the best interest of all shareholders. We intend to close the transaction and enforce the merger agreement at the agreed price and terms. “

If Musk were to pull out of the deal, it would likely trigger a legal battle with the company, and a stock price plummet.

When the speculation about the deal started, it seemed that Twitter wouldn’t accept the deal, but the board ultimately decided to go ahead and accept the offer after equity markets fell.

Since the deal was accepted, Twitter seems set on holding Musk to the original agreement. All this comes as reports speculate that Musk may be trying to get a more favorable deal or out of the whole thing altogether.