Twitter will reportedly yield to data demands from Elon Musk after the Tesla founder threatened to pull out of the $61 billion acquisition deal.
Twitter is preparing to give in to Elon Musk’s data access requests after the tech giant threatened its $61 billion acquisition deal.
Mr. Musk is in negotiations with Twitter to buy the social media platform for $44 billion (AUD$61.3 billion), but recently claimed the deal was “temporarily on hold” after asking the social media platform to clarify how many of its users were bot or spam accounts.
The Tesla founder accused the social media giant of “resisting and thwarting” his right to information about fake accounts, something he previously said was key to the massive deal going ahead.
He claimed that up to half of the 229 million Twitter users could be fake. Twitter estimates that number to be about five percent.
The Twitter board now plans to meet Mr. Musk’s demands by providing access to the entire “fire hose” of data, consisting of more than 500 million tweets posted every day, The Washington Post reports.
A source familiar with the company’s thinking told the publication the information could be provided this week.
There are a number of companies that are already paying to access the data, including real-time registrations of tweets, the devices they were posted with, and information about the accounts associated with the tweet.
A letter sent Monday by Musk’s legal team claimed Twitter is “obliged” to provide information and data for “any reasonable business purpose related to the completion of the transaction.”
Musk believes Twitter is transparently refusing to comply with its obligations under the merger agreement, further raising suspicions that the company is withholding the requested data over concerns about what Musk’s own analysis of that data will reveal. letter from Mr. Musk. lawyer for Twitter’s chief legal officer, Vijaya Gadde, read.
“As a prospective owner of Twitter, Musk is clearly entitled to the requested data to enable him to prepare for the transfer of Twitter’s business to his property and to facilitate his transaction financing. and have an accurate understanding of the core of Twitter’s business model: the active user base.
“In any event, Musk is under no obligation to explain his rationale for requesting the data, nor to submit to the new terms the company has attempted to impose on its contractual right to the requested data.”
The letter added that Mr. Musk reserves the right to “terminate” the agreement.
If he pulls out of the deal, the billionaire could face a $1 billion breakup fee.
It’s not clear why Mr. Musk wants to know how many of Twitter’s users are fake, but he could try to lower the price of the social media platform by showing that it has fewer real subscribers.
He tweeted on May 17 that the deal “cannot continue” until the actual number of spam accounts is revealed.
Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal said in May that Twitter had explained how it works out how many of its accounts are fake.
“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,” Mr Agrawal said at the time.
Mr Agrawal, who has been the CEO of Twitter since Jack Dorsey stepped down last November, added that spammers are “sophisticated and hard to catch”.
The Twitter CEO said he was sure only 5 percent of the accounts were fake and that they randomly tested thousands of accounts.
Mr. Musk emphatically posted the poo emoji on Twitter in response.
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