Elon Musk puts Twitter takeover deal on pause | Financial

The reason for Musk to bring this message out is to wait for the outcome of calculations that should confirm that less than 5% of users have a fake account. He also refers to a message from the beginning of this month about an official document in which Twitter indicates that less than 5 percent of daily users consist of spam accounts. Musk now wants to know how Twitter came to that conclusion. The number of active users is important to potential profitability because spam accounts do not respond to advertisements.

Musk’s notification to wait a while with the takeover deal did not do the share of Twitter any good. The price of the online messaging service plunged more than 17% in the so-called pre-market trading.

Musk, the richest man in the world, has $44 billion to spend on Twitter and wants to take the company off the stock exchange. The board of Twitter has previously agreed to this, but the shareholders have yet to agree. The entire takeover is quite difficult. Musk initially took a stake of more than 9% and then said he wanted to take a passive role, but soon after accepted a role on the board. He came back to that a day later and then he launched his takeover offer. Twitter seemed to be against it at first, but then accepted the offer.

Nevertheless, there is still resistance. The US stock watchdog SEC believes that Musk reported the acquisition of his first interest too late, as a result of which he may have benefited from lower stock prices. A Florida pension fund believes that by first taking an interest, Musk can only make a takeover offer in 2025 and went to court.

At the launch of his takeover bid, Musk said he wants all automated spam accounts to be removed from the messaging service. Currently, automated accounts, or bots, are allowed on Twitter, but they must indicate that they are automated. However, spambots are already banned and Twitter is also trying to tackle those accounts.

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