After Helping Depress Twitter Stock, Elon Musk Floats Possibility Of Lower Purchase Price

Musk said Monday that a lower purchase price is not out of the question, after bad-mouthing the company and helping send stock prices down.

He didn't seem very enthusiastic about buying the social media giant even with a reduced price.

Musk reached a deal last month to buy the company for $44 billion, but has recently been critical of it.

He put the deal on hold last Friday because he thought that the company's claim of less than 5% of accounts may be overstated.

The criticism and Musk's apparent reluctance about the deal sent the stock down as much as 25%.

In a remote interview at the All-Summit tech conference in Miami on Monday, the CEO of the electric car company mocked the figures on the accounts.

He smirked and said that it was beyond reasonable for the social media platform to claim that the number of real, unique humans was above 95 percent.

He estimated that at least 20% of the accounts on the social networking site are filled with fake accounts. It is critical to know for advertising that 80% or 90% of accounts are bots.

He didn't seem enthusiastic about reducing the purchase price even though he said it wouldn't be out of the question. It has to be fixable at the end of the day.

He said that it depends on a lot of factors. The social media company is refusing to tell us. This seems like a strange thing.

He accused the social networking site of having a far left bias.

His full remarks can be found below.

On Monday, Musk responded to a detailed thread about how the company ascertains fake users with a poop emoji.

Musk's latest remarks have not been commented on by Twitter.

Last week, Matt Levine wrote about his concerns about market manipulation and securities fraud after Musk criticized his company on his social media platform.

Levine noted that when buying a company, you are not supposed to say things that aren't true and that will affect the stock of a public company.

Musk settled a fraud lawsuit with the Securities and Exchange Commission because he said on his verified account that he had secured funding to take the company private. He tried to get out of the settlement.