Elon Musk postpones buying Twitter

“The deal to buy Twitter is on hold pending details that confirm statistically that fake accounts account for less than 5% of users on the platform,” the US billionaire Elon Musk tweet on May 13. He later added that he was “still committed to the deal”.

The message was posted with the above article Reuters, which cites documents that Twitter submitted to US federal officials after reaching an agreement with Musk. The social network said that of the 229 million users who saw ads in the first quarter of 2022, less than 5% were fake accounts or bots.

The fake account issue could affect how Twitter tracks “revenueable daily active users,” which are accounts that may see ads when visiting the social network.

Twitter takes a variety of measures to detect and block fake accounts and excludes them from revenue calculations, but acknowledges these accounts have always existed. “Our estimate may not accurately reflect the actual number, the actual number may be higher than what we estimate,” the social network said.

Financial reports show that Twitter earned $1.2 billion in the first three months of this year, of which $ 1.11 billion was from advertising, a significant increase compared to the same period in 2021. However, operating costs also surged to $1.33 billion, costing the company $128 million in operating losses.

Twitter and Musk announced that they had reached a purchase and sale agreement on April 25, but did not give a specific deadline to complete the contract and only said the transaction is expected to be completed this year.

Elon Musk also did not detail his decision to postpone the deal, raising the possibility that he could suspend the deal. The seriousness of the above tweet is also an open question, as this billionaire has repeatedly posted his spontaneous thoughts on Twitter, in addition to carefully calculated plans.

Diep Anh (according to NPR)