Elon Musk's Twitter Purchase Question Mark Still Appears, Bot Accounts Are Still A Debate

JAKARTA - Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk was still dodging the questions on Thursday, June 16, which had been weighing on the minds of Twitter employees and investors for weeks. Does he still intend to buy the social media company?

According to a Bloomberg report, in a virtual meeting with Twitter staff last Thursday, Musk reportedly laid out some of his vision for the company.

The meeting marked Musk's first official communication with a Twitter employee since he signed a deal in late April to buy the company. Since then, however, Musk has expressed concern over the $44 billion acquisition, and raised doubts about whether he intends to do so.

Musk has cited the number of bots reported on the platform as his biggest problem with the move, although Twitter insists that automated accounts make up less than 5% of the network's total monetizable daily active users (mDAU).

Some observers have questioned whether the notoriously nimble CEO propagated the bot problem it claimed was a convenient excuse to walk out of a big deal as Twitter's value plummeted amid a tech sell-off and a broader bear market.

Musk's touch-and-go plan to buy Twitter has been making headlines for weeks. During last Thursday's meeting, the CEO classified media reports, without specifying which ones contained lies about how the deal worked.

In tweets and correspondence with Twitter management, Musk has asserted his right to walk away from the deal, although legal experts have questioned whether doing so would trigger Musk's liability to pay Twitter a $1 billion deal termination fee.

According to Musk, Twitter has refused to share with him raw data on the number of spam and fake accounts on the social media platform, which he says is necessary to evaluate whether to proceed with the deal.

“Twitter's recent offer to simply provide additional details about the company's own testing methodology, whether through written material or verbal explanation, is tantamount to refusing Mr. Musk," wrote a Musk attorney in a letter to Twitter on June 6.

Beyond the bots and his complaints with the media, Musk last Thursday reiterated his belief that free speech is paramount to Twitter. Musk had previously promised to lift Twitter's permanent ban on former US President Donald Trump, who was removed from the platform following the riots in the Capitol, on January 6, 2020.

Musk also set a target to grow Twitter from its current 229 million mDAU or 217 according to 2021 data to 1 billion. He is also considering charging users a fee to verify accounts or blue ticks. As for bots, Musk is reportedly pushing to use open source code to moderate or control spam and automated accounts.

Musk regularly communicates with the public via Twitter, often using the social network to share information about his various companies. But he also spends time on service-sharing memes, belittling politicians, and mocking his critics.

Twitter shares traded around $38 immediately after Thursday's meeting. On April 22, the last trading day before the deal was announced, Twitter shares closed at 48.93 US dollars. If the deal is successful, Musk will pay $54.20 per share for Twitter.

Tesla shares, which make up the bulk of Musk's fortune, traded down more than 9%, at 630 dollars per share, as of Thursday afternoon.