Musk: Doubts about spam accounts could ruin the deal on Twitter

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said his deal to buy Twitter could not go ahead unless the company publicly shows evidence that less than 5% of the platform's accounts are fake or spam.

Musk made the comments in response to another Twitter user Tuesday morning. He spent much of the previous day talking to Twitter CEO Paradge Agrawal, who posted a series of tweets clarifying his company's efforts to combat bots and how it consistently estimates that less than 5% of Twitter accounts fake.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said his deal to buy Twitter could not go ahead unless the company publicly shows evidence that less than 5% of the platform's accounts are fake or spam.

In his Tuesday tweet, Musk said, "20% fake/spam accounts, while 4 times Twitter claims could be much higher." My offer is based on the integrity of Twitter's filings with the SEC." He added: "Yesterday, the CEO of Twitter publicly refused to provide proof of 5%. So this deal can't be moved forward until he does."

According to a Bloomberg News report at a tech back-and-forth in Miami on Monday, Musk estimated that at least 20% of Twitter's 229 million accounts were spambots, which was below his estimate. Also at the All In Summit, Musk gave the strongest hint yet that he wants to pay less for Twitter than his $44 billion bid last month.

He said a decent deal at a lower price wasn't ruled out, according to a Bloomberg report in which he saw a live video of the conference posted by a Twitter user.

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