(San Francisco) Twitter shares lost ground on Thursday after the publication of an article by the Washington Post according to which the takeover of the social network by Elon Musk would be seriously jeopardized, because of concerns of the multi-billionaire about spam.
Posted at 6:21 p.m.
The Tesla and SpaceX boss’s team has reportedly halted negotiations with one of the investors expected to contribute to the $44 billion acquisition of Twitter.
“Now that Musk’s team has come to the conclusion that Twitter’s figures on fake accounts were not verifiable, they should take drastic measures, said one of the sources” familiar with the matter, details the daily American.
On Wall Street, the title of the Californian company lost more than 4% during electronic trading after the close of trading, after a session up slightly (+1.52%).
Elon Musk has repeatedly questioned the data transmitted by Twitter on spam and fake accounts and the means put in place to limit their proliferation.
In early June, the group’s board of directors agreed to give Elon Musk access to the mountains of data needed to answer his questions on this subject, after the businessman threatened, in an official document, to withdraw his offer.
The richest man in the world and his team therefore set out to analyze this raw data to determine if the percentage of fake accounts really represents less than 5% of daily active users of Twitter, as claimed by the network.
“At this point, with an offer at $54.20 a share and a stock around $39, the market is clearly skeptical that the deal will go through at the expected price,” noted Wedbush’s Dan Ives in a statement. note.
“We believe the odds of the deal happening are currently around 60%, with a renegotiated price in the range of $42 to $45 per share,” he added.
If ever Elon Musk terminates his commitment to buy Twitter, he exposes himself to substantial legal proceedings. Both parties have pledged to pay severance pay of up to $1 billion in certain circumstances.