The drama related to the Twitter acquisition by Elon Musk is far from over. In the latest, and the biggest as well, twist Elon Musk has put the Twitter acquisition deal on hold.
Citing the fake, spam, and bot accounts as a reason Musk has tweeted that the Twitter buyout deal is halted, without giving any timeline on hinting at the next course of action.
Musk tweeted an old article from Reuters, which addressed Twitter’s declaration of fever than 5% of total accounts as spam or fake.
Twitter currently has 229 million monetizable users. The micro-blogging website doesn’t consider only the monetizable users as active ones. It means that nearly 12-13 million accounts could be responsible for the fallout of the $44 billion deal.
Surprisingly, the reasoning and style of Musk backing off from the deal seems quite unusual.
While Elon Musk has all the authority to take a final call, the cited reason looks very unconvincing. A filing submitted by Twitter more than two months ago clearly indicates that there is a more troubling reason for Musk to put the Twitter deal on hold, albeit temporarily.
As per Twitter’s own declaration, only 5% of Twitter’s total monetizable user base are either spam or fake accounts. However, many users believe that Musk is citing a lame excuse in a bid to back off the deal that he closed abruptly and in a hush-hush manner.
Interestingly, the latest move made by Parag Agrawal, CEO – Twitter Inc. (NYSE: TWTR), seems to be related to Musk’s decision. Did Agrawal know about the bomb just dropped by Elon Musk? It’s now a question that needs to be reevaluated. Agrawal has fired two top executives from the company and seized all the hiring.
What is Musk really up to? It is difficult to guess at the moment. But his decision may prove fatal for Twitter once the trading starts today. How big a dent Elon Musk’s decision would make on Twitter, only time will tell.
