Elon Musk claimed last week his acquisition of Twitter was "temporarily oh hold" over whether fake/spam accounts comprise more or less than 5% of Twitter users.
Musk opted to forego due diligence before making his acquisition offer, but now seems to be attempting to do the fact-finding that would usually have been done before making an offer by saying the acquisition is "temporarily on hold."
Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of usershttps://www.reuters.com/technology/twitter-estimates-spam-fake-accounts-represent-less-than-5-users-filing-2022-05-02/\u00a0\u2026— Elon Musk (@Elon Musk) 1652435078
According to Bloomberg columnist Matt Levine in his column on Friday, that just isn't a thing.
Levine wrote:
"‘Temporarily on hold’ is not a thing. Elon Musk has signed a binding contract requiring him to buy Twitter."
"Legions of bankers and lawyers and Twitter employees and special-purpose-vehicle promoters are working to fulfill his legal obligation to get the deal closed."
"'The parties hereto will use their respective reasonable best efforts to consummate and make effective the transactions contemplated by this Agreement', says the merger agreement. (Section 6.3(a))."
"He can’t just put that 'on hold'."
Current Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal attempted to explain the nuance of the spam/bot situation through a detailed 15 tweet thread.
Unfortunately, we don\u2019t believe that this specific estimation can be performed externally, given the critical need to use both public and private information (which we can\u2019t share). Externally, it\u2019s not even possible to know which accounts are counted as mDAUs on any given day.— Parag Agrawal (@Parag Agrawal) 1652718372
Musk's response to Agrawal's detailed description was a single poop emoji.
💩
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 16, 2022
Many Twitter users seemed generally unamused by Musk's seemingly immature reply.
But others thought it was hilarious.
Seems like the Twitter acquisition is going well.— unusual_whales (@unusual_whales) 1652720821
pic.twitter.com/Y0xwY3ULYw— \ud835\ude9b\ud835\ude98\ud835\ude8b\ud835\ude8e\ud835\ude9b\ud835\ude9d \ud835\ude9c\ud835\ude9d\ud835\ude9b\ud835\ude92\ud835\ude8b\ud835\ude95\ud835\ude8e\ud835\udea2 (@\ud835\ude9b\ud835\ude98\ud835\ude8b\ud835\ude8e\ud835\ude9b\ud835\ude9d \ud835\ude9c\ud835\ude9d\ud835\ude9b\ud835\ude92\ud835\ude8b\ud835\ude95\ud835\ude8e\ud835\udea2) 1652730291
Agree, this is totally unproductive for all...— Ross Gerber (@Ross Gerber) 1652729810
pic.twitter.com/xMHGrZzOEi— Leandro (@Leandro) 1652722708
The merger talks seem to be going well— John W. Rich (Fake Tech Exec) (@John W. Rich (Fake Tech Exec)) 1652720789
Multiverse of Madness pic.twitter.com/iFkuamS4mJ— AcademyX (@AcademyX) 1652723865
This is the very visionary and adult tech \u201cgenius\u201d whom his defenders love. When you can\u2019t answer facts or logic, post a juvenile emoji\u2026— paul wilner (@paul wilner) 1652746084
Elon Musk: "I will NOT pay $44 billion for your company! It's defective, and I demand a discount NOW!"pic.twitter.com/ymd29pJgnR— John W. Rich (Fake Tech Exec) (@John W. Rich (Fake Tech Exec)) 1652735654
Musk's claims the deal is on hold affected Twitter's stock price substantially, which could spell trouble for him in the future.
Levine described Musk's most recent tweet—and past instances of similar behavior—thusly:
"You are not supposed to say things that aren’t true and that will affect the stock of a public company that you are trying to buy."
"That is what is usually called 'securities fraud,' or what I sometimes like to call 'lite securities fraud.'"
This is far from the first time Musk has tweeted something that may or may not be true and affected the stock prices of companies he is involved with.
He used to "joke" on Twitter about major changes at Tesla that were demonstrably untrue.
These "jokes" would affect the stock price of Tesla. He even settled a fraud lawsuit with the US Securities and Exchange Commission over one such tweet in which he claimed he had found funding to take Tesla private when he hadn't.
It remains to be seen whether Musk will actually go forward with the acquisition of Twitter or attempt to find a way out of the deal.
