New twist in the saga of the takeover of Twitter by Elon Musk: the entrepreneur now says in an official document that Twitter “actively resists” his requests for information on spam and fake accounts and therefore threatens to withdraw his offer.
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The multi-billionaire believes that by not providing him with all the data he requests on the subject, Twitter is in breach of his obligations, according to a letter addressed to the legal manager of the social network and published on the website of the American Financial Markets Authority ( DRY).
“Mr. Musk reserves all resulting rights, including his right not to complete the transaction and his right to terminate the merger agreement.
The boss of Tesla and SpaceX, who in April filed an offer to buy the social network for 44 billion dollars, has already questioned on several occasions the data transmitted by Twitter on spam and fake accounts and the measures taken to limit its proliferation. And he has already threatened on his Twitter account to put the agreement “on hold”.
But this is the first time he has done so in an official document.
According to Dan Ives, of Wedbush, this new incident demonstrates that Mr. Musk is “looking for a way to abandon the agreement”.
Twitter’s board of directors “will certainly oppose” this version of the facts, adds the analyst in a tweet.
Mr. Musk’s recent criticism of Twitter has also sometimes been interpreted as a way for the contractor to revise the amount of the agreement downwards.
The company did not immediately respond to a request from AFP.
Both parties have pledged to pay severance pay of up to $1 billion in certain circumstances.
Quarrel of methodology
Twitter estimates that according to its own analysis, the number of fake accounts and spam on the social network represents less than 5% of its daily active users.
But Mr Musk says the methodology used by Twitter is not “adequate” and that he must conduct his “own analysis”. He “repeatedly” asked the social network for more information, the letter claims.
“Twitter’s latest offer to simply provide additional details relating to its testing methodologies, whether through written materials or verbal explanations, is tantamount to denying Mr. Musk’s claims for data.” he writes in the document.
However, it is also stated there, the entrepreneur needs more information to prepare the transition and finalize the financing of the operation.
After previous criticisms of Mr. Musk, the boss of the social network Parag Agrawal had split mid-May of a long explanation on the measures taken to fight against spam and fake accounts.
Mr. Agrawal had indicated in particular that the figures of Twitter were “based on multiple reproductions of human analyzes of accounts, which are selected in a random way”.
The whimsical entrepreneur had responded to these explanations with an emoji in the shape of poop. “How do advertisers know what they are really paying?” he also tweeted. “This is a fundamental issue for the financial health of Twitter.”
This new episode in the saga of the takeover of Twitter comes after the expiration, Friday, of the deadline granted to the American competition authorities to launch a thorough examination of the operation. They did not take up the case, thus leaving the field open to continue finalizing the transaction.