Show proof of less than 5% fake accounts: Elon Musk to Twitter CEO

Tesla CEO Elon Musk told Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal to show the proof of fake/spam accounts being less than 5% for the takeover deal to move forward. 

Musk on Tuesday wrote that his offer of $44 was based on Twitter’s SEC filings being accurate. He reiterated his claim that there could be 20% or more fake/spam accounts, which is 4 times of what Twitter claims or it could be much higher.

Pointing out that Twitter’s CEO on Monday publicly refused to show proof of <5% fake/spam accounts, Musk firmly said that this deal cannot move forward until Agrawal shows the proof.

On Friday Musk tweeted that his plan to buy Twitter was placed on temporary hold as he tried to pinpoint the number of fake accounts on the social media platform. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO said the hold was pending details of Twitter's calculation that fake accounts are less than 5 per cent of its users.

In tweets on Monday, Agrawal acknowledged Twitter isn't perfect at catching spam. He wrote that every quarter, the company has made the estimate of less than 5 per cent spam.

Our estimate is based on multiple human reviews of thousands of accounts that are sampled at random, consistently over time, Agrawal wrote.

Estimates for the last four quarters were all well under 5 per cent, he wrote. The error margins on our estimates give us confidence in our public statements each quarter.

Musk, using his favourite platform, responded with a smiling emoji of poop, then asked how Twitter's advertisers know what they're getting for their money.

Tesla shares closed Monday down nearly 6 per cent at $724.37. They have lost about one-third of their value since the trading day before Musk disclosed his Twitter stake.