Elon Musk Says Twitter Deal Cannot Move Forward Until Clarity On Fake Accounts

Billionaire business magnate Elon Musk said Tuesday his $44 billion offer to purchase Twitter deal cannot move forward until there is clarity on fake accounts.

The SpaceX founder tweeted that he estimates at least 20% of all Twitter accounts, or even more, could be fake or spam accounts, which is four times what Twitter claims of being less than 5%.

He added that his billion-dollar offer to purchase Twitter was based on the company's US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings being accurate.

"Yesterday, Twitter's CEO publicly refused to show proof of <5%. This deal cannot move forward until he does," Musk said in response to an article shared by Teslarati, a California-based multi-platform media company that publishes news on Tesla, SpaceX, and ventures affiliated with Musk.

Musk's statements came after Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal responded Monday to the billionaire about putting the multi-billion deal temporarily on hold over issues of spam, or fake accounts.

"Let's talk about spam. And let's do so with the benefit of data, facts, and context," Agrawal wrote on his personal Twitter account. "Unfortunately, we don't believe that this specific estimation can be performed externally, given the critical need to use both public and private information (which we can't share)."

Agrawal added it is not possible to externally know which Twitter accounts are counted as monetizable daily active users on any given day.

"There are LOTS of details that are very important underneath this high-level description. We shared an overview of the estimation process with Elon a week ago and look forward to continuing the conversation with him, and all of you," he added.

Musk announced last week that the Twitter deal was temporarily put on hold pending details supporting the calculation of spam/fake accounts represent less than 5% of the social media platform's users.

Earlier this month, Twitter said it estimates false, spam, and fake accounts make up less than 5% of its total monetizable daily active users, according to a filing with the SEC.

After Musk's announcement of putting the deal on hold, Twitter shares plummeted over 9.6% on May 13, and an additional 8.2% Monday on the New York Stock Exchange. -