As the legal battle between Elon Musk and Twitter is all set to take place in the court of Delaware, both parties are leaving no stone unturned to influence the sentiments of people and put each other in a humiliating state. Last week Twitter surprised everyone by dragging Musk’s billionaire friends into the court battle. This week Musk made a mockery of Twitter’s claim on spam/fake accounts by using its platform.
The Twitter poll by Tesla President Elon Musk reveals that more than 65 percent of his followers don’t find any merit in Twitter’s claim of having less than five percent of spam/bots accounts.
Musk is currently engaged in a supposed to be a long legal battle against Twitter for backing off from the $44 billion acquisition deal. In a fresh attack on Twitter, Musk asked his 102.8 million followers to express their views about Twitter’s claim of spam/fake daily active users accounting for less than 5% of the total active user base.
The poll result, however, was quite discouraging for Twitter and its CEO Parag Agrawal, whom Musk challenged for an open debate.
Although 35 percent of users believe Twitter is honest with its claim of having less than 5% of spam/bot accounts, two out of every three Twitter followers who participated in the poll believe this is not the case; The number of fake accounts on Twitter is much higher instead.
“Twitter is speaking,” Musk tweeted after seeing the poll results on Monday.
More than 820,000 Twitter users participated in the poll, and the sizable share of participation once again proves the influence and domination of Musk on Twitter as a platform.
Interestingly, Musk has kept the doors open to revisit his decision subject to Parag Agrawal proving the authenticity of the fake accounts.
“If Twitter simply provides their method of sampling 100 accounts and how they’re confirmed to be real, the deal should proceed on original terms,” Musk tweeted.
At the same time, he smartly put Twitter in a fix by dragging SEC into the discussion.
“However, if it turns out that their Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings are materially false, then it should not,” Musk also tweeted.
But Musks didn’t just stop there. Amid the ongoing legal battle, Musk has also challenged Agrawal to hold an open debate about spam and fake accounts.
“I hereby challenge Parag Agrawal to a public debate about the Twitter bot percentage. Let him prove to the public that Twitter has a lesser percent of fake or spam daily users!” He tweeted on Twitter.
All of these tweets were enough to trigger Musk’s fans and followers. His most fervent supporter Pranay Pathole aimed at SEC for inaction.
She wrote “I am curious to know what the SEC is doing. Are they actually investigating the claims of doubt being made on Twitter?”
Musk is famous for making the most of every opportunity, and he immediately put his weight behind the thought by questioning SEC for sitting duck.
A thorough reply to the countersuit filed by Musk came from Twitter. The micro-blogging platform has labeled Musk’s assertions “factually incorrect, legally inadequate and economically irrelevant”.
According to Musk, he was duped by Twitter into signing the $44 billion acquisition agreement.
It will be a long legal battle between Twitter and Musk over the Twitter acquisition. After dragging Musk’s billionaire friends into the battle there is no way Twitter can afford to lose it now.
Musk, on the other hand, is confident of winning the battle on the grounds of the absence of transparency in agreement and audit. By challenging Twitter to prove the authenticity of its claim of having spam/bots accounts of no more than 5% of the total daily users, Musk has perhaps put Twitter in a tough spot. And even if Twitter wins the battle by proving it and forcing Musk to go for the acquisition, it will be Musk who will emerge as the ultimate winner.
Twitter doesn’t consider non-monetizable daily active users as active. Hence, in all of its filings, it only talks about monetizable daily and monthly active users. According to the Q2 2022 filing, Twitter claims to have 237.8 million monetizable daily monetizable users on its platform.
Musk is already paying a 38% premium over the share price to Twitter. If the micro-social media platform succeeds in proving that the percentage of spam/bit accounts is no more than 5% of the daily active users, Elon Musk would eventually pay $195 for each monetizable daily active user – which is already higher than $185 per monetizable daily active users if we consider all 237.8 million as genuine.
Musk, on the other hand, strongly believes that the percentage of spam/bot accounts on Twitter is no less than 20% – 4 times higher than Twitter’s claim. In such a situation Musk doesn’t see paying $231 – or maybe even higher – for each monetizable daily active user as a very lucrative offer.
Experts believe that both Twitter and Elon musk must agree on a $1 billion breakup fee as per the agreement. Twitter’s board must settle it as soon as possible and focus on taking the platform to new heights only to let Musk repent on his decision at a later stage. Pushing Musk to go for the deal and rubbing its billionaire friends on the wrong side will only bring more damage to the company, making it appear too desperate to acquire.
What’s your take on the Musk-Twitter battle? Do you think Musk has the right to ask Twitter to be more transparent, or it’s just too late for such due diligence? Let us know your views in the comment section below.
