Musk stated that the $44 billion purchase of Twitter would be stopped to find out how many fake accounts there are. After Elon Musk announced that his $44billion acquisition of Twitter would be “temporarily suspended”, Twitter stock plummeted beyond 19% in premarket.
“Twitter deal temporarily put on hold pending details supporting calculation spam/fake account do indeed represent less than 5% users,” he tweeted today citing a May 2 Report from Reuters about estimated bot activity on this social media platform.
Musk quickly took to Twitter shortly after the announcement to state that his commitment to acquisition (sic) was not lost.
When discussing his Twitter ambitions, the SpaceX and Tesla chief stated that he had set out to eliminate spam and bot activity. He stated that he intends to open-source Twitter’s code on GitHub, and add an editing feature.
Today’s news is the culmination of a long-running saga that has involved the social media platform as well as the controversial entrepreneur and, of course cryptocurrencies.
Musk’s Twitter story
Elon Musk bought a 9.2% share of Twitter in April, before making a formal bid for full control just weeks later. Twitter officially accepted the offer, despite the board invoking the “poison pill” to block it.
Musk discussed integrating Dogecoin to pay for Twitter’s premium services. This adds to his popularity as one of Dogecoin’s most influential voices.
Musk was asked if he regrets his repeated pumping of Dogecoin during a TED talk in Vancouver.
His reply: “I think they are fun, and I have always said, ‘Don’t bet on Dogecoin.’”
There are many other crypto connections.
An updated 13D file to the SEC revealed that the largest crypto exchange Binance was responsible for funding Musk’s bid for Twitter. Changpeng Zhao, Binance CEO, shared the news on Twitter. He called it a “small contribution to the cause.”
Fidelity ($316 Million), Qatar Holdings (375 Billion) and Andreessen Horowitz (400 M).
Larry Ellison’s $1 Billion commitment was the largest in the group.
