Elon Musk: Doubt About Spam Accounts Could Scuttle Twitter Deal

Musk says that the deal can't move forward unless the company shows proof that less than 5% of accounts are fake.

Musk made the comment in a reply to another user. He spent a lot of time the previous day in a back-and-forth with Parag Agrawal, the CEO of the company, who posted a series of messages explaining his company's effort to fight bots and how it has consistently estimated that less than 5% of accounts are fake.

In his Tuesday message, Musk said that 20% of accounts were fake, while 4% could be much higher. My offer was based on the SEC filing.

20% fake/spam accounts, while 4 times what Twitter claims, could be *much* higher.My offer was based on Twitter’s SEC filings being accurate.

Yesterday, Twitter’s CEO publicly refused to show proof of <5%.

This deal cannot move forward until he does.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 17, 2022

He said that the CEO of the company refused to show proof of 5%. The deal cannot move forward until he does.

At a Miami technology conference Monday, Musk estimated that at least 20% of the accounts on the micro-messaging service are fake, according to a report.

According to the report, he said a viable deal at a lower price would not be out of the question.