Written by: Katie Scott, Business Reporter
Elon Musk has thrown the prospect of his becoming the new owner of Twitter into disarray following a Tweet on Friday (13th May).
Tesla’s owner and the world’s richest individual, Musk tweeted: "Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users." The Tweet was a response to a Reuters story, which reported that Twitter estimated that spam and fake accounts amounted to less than five percent of its users.
The tweet immediately wiped 16 percent off Twitter’s share price, which were valued at £44.50 three weeks ago when Musk detailed the $44bn (£36.1bn) takeover.
Musk followed up by stating he was still “committed to [the] acquisition” and added that his team was going to do some research of its own into the percentages, including a “random sample of 100 followers of @twitter.” He also encouraged others “to repeat the same process and see what they discover”.
Musk has emphasised that getting rid of spambots would be one of its priorities as new owner; as well as reinstating banned accounts.
