Elon Musk’s proposed acquisition of Twitter Inc. may fall apart over his doubts that the company is accurately reporting the number of spam bots on the service, according to a report, even as company executives reiterated the number is low and tried to better explain how they calculate the figures.
Twitter has repeatedly said that spam bots represent less than 5% of its total user base. Musk, meanwhile, has complained that the number is much higher, and has threatened to walk away from his agreement to buy the company for $44 billion until he gets confirmation about Twitter’s bot percentage.
Musk’s team has concluded that Twitter can’t verify its figures on the spam accounts and has “stopped engaging” in discussions around funding the deal, the Washington Post reported Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. This issue has put the acquisition by the Tesla CEO “in serious jeopardy,” the newspaper said, citing the people.