Elon Musk has lost interest in buying Twitter

Buying Twitter for $44 billion is under serious threat, has learned The Washington Post . According to the newspaper, Elon Musk almost stopped negotiations with a co-investor, and his team came to the conclusion that the data dump provided by the company does not include personal information from accounts and does not allow to establish the real share of bots on the platform.

The forecast of business development, including the advertising model, directly depends on this indicator. Twitter has repeatedly stated that it is actively fighting fake and spam accounts, which are noticeably less than 5%, while Musk assumed that they were more than 20%.

One source told WP that Musk's group is preparing to "take decisive action" with a "sharp change of direction" soon, but did not provide details.

Spam accounts are likely not the main reason Musk is trying to wriggle out of the mega-deal, the newspaper notes. Since April, when the billionaire announced it, Twitter has fallen in price by 10%, and Tesla, the basis of Musk's fortune, by as much as 30%. Thus, at a fixed price, he will noticeably overpay for the asset.

A likely-failing court is unlikely to accept the argument that the bot share dispute meets the condition of a “business-defining change,” WP notes, and even in the best-case scenario, Musk will have to pay the $1 billion for cancellation stipulated by the agreement. In a sense, the billionaire himself trapped himself by not doing due diligence before announcing the purchase, says University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias.

It is noteworthy that Twitter, which actively resisted the deal in the early stages, is now demonstrating a willingness to see it through to the end. "Twitter continues to cooperate with Mr. Musk, providing all the information in accordance with the merger agreement ... we intend to close the transaction in strict accordance with the price and conditions established by the agreement," the press service said in a statement.

The day before, the company said that the figure of less than 5% of spam accounts is also given by manual quarterly rechecking of thousands of accounts. Quotes Twitter at the auction after the close on Thursday fell by 4%.

Why is it important

The fate of one of the world's most important media services remains in the hands of one person. It is possible that Musk will clear the prospects at the Sun Valley Conference on Saturday. If the deal fails, there will be no way to “turn the stuffing back”: neither the months of quotation volatility, nor friction in the team will go anywhere, the departure of employees and damage to the image will not be canceled. Recovery looks neither easy nor guaranteed.