Elon Musk says Twitter deal ‘cannot move forward’ until CEO proves spam claims

Elon Musk’s deal to take over Twitter “cannot move forward” unless he receives more information about spam accounts on the platform, he has said.

Mr Musk has said that the deal is “temporarily on hold” until Twitter is able to prove claims in its filings that less than 5 per cent of its active users are spam or fake accounts.

On Monday, in a long thread, Twitter chief executive Parag Agarwal claimed that the company would be unable to provide such proof publicly because it relies on private and internal information.

Initially, Mr Musk replied to that with a turd emoji. He then asked “how do advertisers know what they’re getting for their money?”

Now, in new tweets, Mr Musk said that he thought the number could be far higher than Twitter’s claims and that he would not move forward with the deal until more proof had been provided.

“20% fake/spam accounts, while 4 times what Twitter claims, could be *much* higher,” he wrote.

“My offer was based on Twitter’s SEC filings being accurate.

“Yesterday, Twitter’s CEO publicly refused to show proof of

“This deal cannot move forward until he does.”

In reply to Mr Musk tweets, a user named Pranay Pathole who regularly sends flattering messages to Mr Musk noted that his post about putting the cocaine back in Coca-Cola had become Twitter’s most liked ever. He noted that tweet had only been liked by some 2.5 per cent of Twitter’s user base, and Mr Pathole used those numbers to suggest – without showing his working – that “there’s a high possibility that the number of fake/spam/bot accounts could be well over 50%”.

“Exactly,” replied Mr Musk.