Elon Musk will either pay far less for Twitter or use fake accounts as an excuse to walk away, experts say

Starlink and Musk put the deal on hold due to the number of bots on the platform.

His rhetoric increased last weekend, first calling out the lack of clarity on how the company calculated the 5% bots figure. He agreed with a comment that if 25% of users were bots, the deal to buy the platform should cost 25% less, which would knock a potential $11 billion off the sale price.

As scrutiny of Musk mounts and his other companies lose value, the billionaire is under pressure to make a decision on the takeover before his net worth declines even more. Experts say he can either walk away from the deal or negotiate a new one.

How many bots are on Twitter? 

Less than 5% of its 229 million daily active users are automated.

Dan Brahmy, CEO of the Israeli tech company Cyabra, gave an estimate of 13.7%. Musk told All In that he thinks the number is at least 20%.

Kai- Cheng Yang and Filippo Menczer argued in The Conversation that the definition of a bot is disputed, and that the argument misses the point because it ignores different users' experiences.

The final price of a deal depends on the number of genuine active users.

Mark Weinstein is the founder of MeWe, a freemium social networking app with 20 million users. He said that if millions of users are actually bots, then it would be worth less.

If it was proven that 25% of the users were actually bots, advertisers would demand a lower rate.

Will Musk get his 25% discount?

Weinstein said a fair price was closer to $23 billion. He is not the only one who thinks the current deal is overvalued.

Weinstein said there was an argument that the offer was inflated.

The $54.20 a share offer was out of the window as scrutiny on the number of bots increased, according to a recent research note. Musk will have to pay a $1 billion break fee if a new price is not negotiated.

We believe that Musk will try to walk and use this account issue as a scapegoat to get out of the deal and that the board will come to a new deal price over the coming weeks.

A steep discount that would bring Musk close to his 25% discount demand would be what the new deal would be.

Musk is facing a fork in the road situation in which he has to decide his next step in this soap opera as investor patience is wearing thin.

It was not possible to comment on the matter.