Posted on 05/16/2022 6:07:56 AM PDT by blam
Former President Donald Trump on Saturday said there is “no way” that Elon Musk will buy Twitter at “such a ridiculous price” while pointing to the number of fake accounts and bots on the social media platform.
Trump took to his own social media platform, Truth Social, to make the comments shortly after billionaire tech mogul Musk announced that his deal to buy Twitter was “temporarily on hold” until detailed information becomes available supporting that bots or fake accounts make up fewer than 5 percent of users on the platform.
“There is no way Elon Musk is going to buy Twitter at such a ridiculous price, especially since realizing it is a company largely based on BOTS or Spam Accounts,” Trump wrote.
“Fake anyone?” he added.
“By the time you get rid of them, if that can even be done, what do you have? Not much? If it weren’t for the ridiculous Billion Dollar breakup fee, Elon would have already been long gone.”
The former president went on to tout his own platform, adding that in his opinion it was “much better than Twitter” and is “absolutely exploding” with “incredible engagement!”
In his post regarding fake or spam accounts on May 13, Musk shared a Reuters report from early May stating that Twitter had estimated in a filing that false or spam accounts represented fewer than 5 percent of its monetizable daily active users during the first quarter.
Twitter said in its April 28 filing (pdf) that “there are a number of false or spam accounts in existence on our platform.”
“We have performed an internal review of a sample of accounts and estimate that the average of false or spam accounts during the first quarter of 2022 represented fewer than 5 percent of our mDAU [monetizable daily active users] during the quarter,” the company added.
“Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5 percent of users,” Musk said in his Twitter post.
The announcement sent shares of Twitter tumbling.
However, Musk followed it up with a second post shortly after noting that he is “still committed” to the acquisition and explained that his team will do a “random sample of 100 followers of Twitter” to find out the percentage of fake accounts.
“I invite others to repeat the same process and see what they discover,” the Tesla CEO added.
It was announced last month that Musk would take Twitter private for $54.20 a share, putting the firm’s value at about $44 billion. The businessman has said that if he is successful in purchasing Twitter, he intends to authenticate all real humans on the platform.
“If our twitter bid succeeds, we will defeat the spam bots or die trying,” Musk said in an April 21 post. He followed that message up with a pledge to “authenticate all real humans.”
Elsewhere, Musk has said he will reinstate Trump’s Twitter account should his deal prove successful, stating that the social media platform’s decision to ban Trump was “morally bad.”
Trump was permanently suspended from the social networking site in January 2021, after it accused him of violating the company’s “Glorification of Violence” policy.
“I do think that it was not correct to ban Donald Trump,” Musk told a Financial Times conference on May 10. “I think that was a mistake because it alienated a large part of the country and did not ultimately result in Donald Trump not having a voice,” he added.
For now, though, Trump has no plans to return to Twitter.
Musk should buy it and merge with Truth Social...
This could be his way of lowballing the price, but even at $20B it’s probably not worth it.
There’s zero value or benefit to Musk aligning Twitter with Truth Social.
Twitter already down 2.75% pre-market. With all those bots and fake accounts, it’s probably not worth anywhere near what they’re asking. Maybe Twitter has some secret deal with the government that helps pay their bills like Facebook does, can’t imagine how else it can produce enough income otherwise.
What’s your reasoning?
Getting the purchase price reduced would be even better, but long term new management at Twitter would be part of the best solution.
Just curious, if you’re one person with several twitter accounts are those considered spam accounts?
5% fake or bots …… LOL ….. what if it’s 10 times that amount or more ?
I just don’t see how they have enough advertising revenue to justify it’s hefty book value. How are they generating income? With all those bots are they even being honest with their advertisers about their reach? Just doesn’t seem to add up.
Musk knows more about these things than trump who relies on his paid experts.
I’ll vote for Trump again in 2024 but serious hope he does a better job of picking his cabinet/VP/experts than he did in 2016
It’s market price is falling even further now, it could collapse today with the speculation that it has a huge number of fake accounts.
We'll see...
He exposed Twitter for the liberal scam it is.
He showed that the sellers misrepresented themselves so that a renegotiation for a lower price is possible.
And if he can't get it at a lower price, he will not likely have to pay the $1 billion for backing out of the deal.
Shrewd dude!
Maybe or maybe not that was the intention, but in any case a good thing if it happens that way.
Twitter = Enron
Folks,
Offers are made subject to certain condition. When making offers you always keep a way out and negotiation continues until you buy it at the price that works for you meaning you have revealed a flaw in the value, or you walk away from the offer.
It isn’t over till it is over. Price of the stock is not the only item of negotiation but it is a big one.
He made a large offer up front but that was only the beginning of negotiation. Trump knows this and is helping the process.
I just want them to release Truth Social for Android. Until then it is a niche product.
No mention of the pending ‘bot lawsuits. Leftists tipped their hand that they knew of lots of malfeasance by Twitter, and were planning to sue the heck out of the business, *after* it was owned by Musk.
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