The billionaire is not predictable at all. He continues to catch the public off guard and tease them with situations like his most recent Twitter buy deal.
It seems clear that the Tesla and SpaceX owner is buying the social media, however, a recent tweet that he posts might signal a turn of events in a different direction.
Elon Musk Backing Off From Twitter Deal?
“Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users.” – Elon posts a tweet several hours ago.
It turns out that one of the clauses of the buying contract was exactly regarding the fake and spam accounts. During recent research, it happens that the social media platform has more than the claimed 5% of fake accounts. And this seems to be a dealbreaker for the billionaire.
It is amazing how much a single tweet or a single post can affect the economy or the worth of a company. Immediately after the tweet, Twitter shares went down by more than 20% in premarket trading.
Two hours after this, Elon tweets, that he is still committed to acquisition. The stock market shares rebound once again. Is he playing with the company? Is he trying to display his power? His ‘game’ is unclear to the common people. However, we can be sure that he has something in mind.
A financial report is done every 3 months. In the most recent report, Twitter released information that ending with April, the social media company estimates having about 5% fake/spam accounts. The estimates are allegedly based on a review of sample accounts. This estimate is to be ‘reasonable’.
Twitter officials have openly stated that the fake/spam accounts are a problem for the platform, as they are for any other social media platform. Just think about how many ‘fake’ account friend requests you’ve received on Facebook. Fake accounts are a common thing in social media. The reason is that they are using them to promote something. To push some fake information to make the headlines by sharing it, etc.
Nonetheless, this should have been known and accepted by Elon Musk from the beginning. It is not something that might come unexpectedly. Do not tell me that Elon hasn’t noticed that the number is higher than 5% even before thinking to buy the platform. However, the billionaire now plays the fool and threatens to back up from the deal.
The cause for this might be, amongst other things Elon’s first offer. He firstly offers to buy the platform at a price of $54.2 per share, however, the stock price is topping at $50 for weeks. He might be reconsidering his offer now taking into consideration the current stock price. This would save him around $5 billion dollars. And that is an amount that you cannot ignore.
Additionally to that, when he shares the information that he ‘buys’ Twitter, Tesla’s stock price goes up by 6%, and then he decides to sell a good chunk of it.
So, Elon is playing some game here. What it is exactly we do not know yet, but I am sure that it will reveal itself within the next few days.
