Like a bolt from the blue, just a few hours after the umpteenth proposed changes to the social network, Twitter announced that it had suspended the purchase of the platform to see clearly on the actual number of fake and spam accounts appearing among the subscribers.
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Engaged in executive rearrangements, but also in developing new functions and in informing about its privacy tools, the social Twitter has again had to confront the statements of the aspiring buyer Elon Musk, both about Trump and, even more important, regarding his doubts in carrying out the purchase operation.
As is known, after the criticisms of free speech on the platform, Musk first bought a stake in Twitter (moreover by communicating his investment over 5% behind the amount due, with consequent savings – according to Il Sole 24 Ore – 143 million dollars on how much the operation would have cost him) and then – after some initial resistance – obtained the green light from the board of directors of the social network, to an agreement based on the payment of 44 billion dollars, with penalties from on both sides in case the transaction is not completed. After a series of further tweets, in which the billionaire had expressed some of his wishes, about functions that should have been implemented and how he would have changed the platform to make it more profitable, in the past few hours the cold shower has arrived.
Elon Musk announced that he had suspended the acquisition procedure of the social network, referring to a report by Reuter, dated May 2, which reported some data sent to the SEC by the platform, in which it was claimed that an average of less than 5% of the monetizable accounts on a daily basis was made up of spam and fake accounts. As a result of this situation, Musk would have taken a break, waiting for the data in question to be validated.
Needless to say, these statements caused Twitter’s share value to plummet (up to -20%) in the negotiations that preceded the opening of the market (Tesla’s prices have instead risen, since investors in that company fear that by buying the social Musk could get distracted too much at the level of commitments and energies), only to recover a little bit when, subsequently, Musk reappeared saying that he was still engaged in the Twitter acquisition process.
At the moment, Twitter has not released an official statement on the matter but, in return, an explanation of what has happened in the last few hours has been provided by the financial analyst of Hargreaves Lansdow, Susannah Streeter. she according to which the data quoted by Musk had been known for some time and not recent, so much so that she should have already known them and, therefore, it is very likely that everything is configured as a strategy to lower the price of the purchase operation.
Just a few hours before the media-financial storm in question, Elon Musk, still with a convinced buyer candidate approach, tweeted again about the Trump case explaining that, even if a less divisive candidate than the former president would be better for 2024, the current CEO Agrawal’s social platform is expected to remove the permanent ban, attributed to the Republican politician after essentially supporting his fans’ assault on the US Capitol. Also in the course of the following tweets, the histrionic billionaire advised Twitter to authenticate all real people, while proceeding to give higher priority to their responses than those of unauthenticated users.
