Elon Musk is no stranger to controversy and he stirred it up by tweeting that the deal was “temporarily on hold.” Musks’ out of the blue tweet sent Twitter’s stock plunging in pre-market as many analysts speculated that Musk is trying to negotiate the price of Twitter down.
“Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users,” Musk tweeted.
Underneath his tweet, he linked a Reuters report from May 2 linked here.
The tweet sent Twitter’s stock down by 25% after his tweet. Tesla stock jumped 6% because investors think that Musk won’t have to sell more of his shares in the electric automaker.
Musk tweeted an article saying that false or spam accounts made up only 5% of the company’s 229 million users.
Musk said that he was still committed to the deal. If he walks, he’ll be on the hook for the $1 billion termination fee.
The deal has not closed yet and has not been approved by shareholders. It’s not clear what Musk’s tweets mean for the deal. The takeover bid was accepted back in April 25.
Musk has pointed out that one of his main goals at Twitter is removing the “spam bots” from the platform.
An analyst for Wedbush, Dan Ives said Musk’s tweet is “bizarre” and that it “sends this whole deal into a circus show with many questions and no concrete answers.”
“If Musk does decide to still go down the deal path a clear renegotiation is likely on the table,” he followed.
Do you think Musk is pulling out of the deal?
