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Elon Musk earlier this month at the Met Gala in New York. Alamy Stock Photo

Musk says Twitter purchase will not go ahead without clarity on spam accounts

Musk yesterday responded with a poo emoji after the Twitter CEO defended the social media platform’s handling of bots.

LAST UPDATE | 17 May 2022

BILLIONAIRE ELON MUSK has said that his purchase of Twitter would not go ahead unless he was assured that fewer than five percent of accounts on the platform were fake.

“Yesterday, Twitter’s CEO publicly refused to show proof of <5%,” tweeted Musk, who has almost 94 million followers on the social network.

“This deal cannot move forward until he does.”

Twitter chief executive Parag Agrawal yesterday defended the messaging platform’s battle against “bots” that aspiring buyer Musk says vex the platform, only to have the billionaire respond with a poo emoji.

The exchange played out in tweets as Musk’s $44 billion buy of Twitter remained “temporarily on hold,” pending questions over the social media company’s estimates of the number of fake accounts, or “bots.”

“It appears the spam/bot issue is cascading and clearly making the Twitter deal a confusing one,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said in a note to investors.

“The bot issue at the end of the day was known by the New York City cab driver and feels more to us like the ‘dog ate the homework’ excuse to bail on the Twitter deal or talk down a lower price.”

Agrawal said the platform suspends more than a half-million seemingly bogus accounts daily, usually before they are even seen, and locks millions more weekly that fail checks to make sure they are controlled by humans and not by software.

Internal measures show that fewer than five percent of accounts active on any given day at Twitter are spam, but that analysis can’t be replicated externally due to the need to keep user data private, Agrawal contended.

Musk, who has said bots plague Twitter and that he would make getting rid of them a priority if he owned the platform, responded to that tweet by Agrawal with a poo emoji.

“So how do advertisers know what they’re getting for their money?” Musk tweeted in a subsequent response about the need to prove Twitter users are real people.

“This is fundamental to the financial health of Twitter.”

The process used to estimate how many accounts are bots has been shared with Musk, Agrawal said.

The chief of SpaceX as well as Tesla, Musk is currently listed by Forbes as the world’s wealthiest person, with a fortune of some $230 billion, much of it in Tesla stock.

Seen by his champions as an iconoclastic genius and by his critics as an erratic megalomaniac, Musk surprised many investors in April with his pursuit of Twitter.

Musk has described his motivation as stemming from a desire to ensure freedom of speech on the platform and to boost monetization of an Internet site that is influential in media and political circles but has struggled to attain profitable growth.

Musk said he favored lifting the ban on Donald Trump, who was kicked off the platform in January 2021 shortly after the former US president’s efforts to overturn his election defeat led to the 6 January assault on the US Capitol.

© AFP 2022

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    Mute Joan Featherstone
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    Feb 13th 2014, 8:58 AM

    What a super gesture and that hotel is in a beautiful spot. Well done!

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    Mute Robbie Doyle
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    Feb 13th 2014, 9:03 AM

    This is the type of spirit we should be working towards and aspiring to as a country rather than promoting peoples apparent selfishness.

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    Mute Neal •IntoYourHead
    Favourite Neal •IntoYourHead
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    Feb 25th 2014, 11:09 AM

    Okay, relax there and stop judging us all.

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    Mute Alison Irving
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    Feb 13th 2014, 10:46 AM

    Yesterday evening getting on the bus I realised there was no money on my Leap card & I didnt have enough change for the fare – bus driver let me off with the extra because he “couldn’t leave you out there in that weather”. Thanks Dublin Bus!!

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    Mute Ryan Freeman
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    Feb 13th 2014, 9:21 AM

    Session!

    132
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    Mute Darren Callaghan
    Favourite Darren Callaghan
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    Feb 13th 2014, 10:00 AM

    Power Cut, lock in at the Glendalough Hotel during a storm, damn it why didn’t I buy house in Laragh

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    Mute Sean Scanlon
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    Feb 13th 2014, 1:57 PM

    I did

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    Mute Daisy Chainsaw
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    Feb 13th 2014, 11:03 AM

    Whitford House Hotel in Wexford posted something similar. I don’t know if they provided any freebies, but there are worse places to while away a bad evening!

    (*not related or affiliated. I just like the place.)

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    Mute aisling doyle
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    Feb 13th 2014, 11:55 AM

    Love it too :) always a great place to go — great to see people been nice

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    Mute Shanti
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    Feb 13th 2014, 11:26 AM

    I saw a lot of these types of gestures on Facebook last night – including this one..
    Nice to see that sense of community is still with us.. Unlike the garden furniture and a few sheds..

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    Mute Deborah Carroll
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    Feb 13th 2014, 4:43 PM

    Lovely to see them helping out, unlike a certain shop in Newcastle West charging 80 euro for a camping stove this morning…

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    Mute Neal •IntoYourHead
    Favourite Neal •IntoYourHead
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    Feb 25th 2014, 11:11 AM

    That seems quite reasonable for a camping stove.

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    Mute Barry Aston
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    Feb 13th 2014, 3:17 PM

    Great hotel in all truth. Used to lack a bit years ago but is now top notch. Spent 4 days there last week. They are sound staff and the chef is fairly handy too.

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    Mute Jacinta O'Shaughnessy Foley
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    Feb 13th 2014, 10:32 AM

    Brilliant marketing stategy!

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    Mute Mary Blake
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    Feb 13th 2014, 5:37 PM

    Fantastic well done we all need a little help sometimes

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    Mute AICS (Steve Tracey)
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    Feb 13th 2014, 7:29 PM

    Possibly was a marketing, PR strategy. Does that make it any less pf a good thing? I supposevsome people will always find a way of belittling helpful actions.

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    Mute David Giles
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    Feb 14th 2014, 6:02 AM

    Virtue brings its own reward.

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    Mute Gerard Creedon
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    Feb 13th 2014, 12:28 PM

    Great thinkin can’t lose wit dat PR !!

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    Mute Gobblor
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    Feb 13th 2014, 3:48 PM

    wit dat?

    Red thumb for being a moron.

    23
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