#Twitter #takeover #Elon #Musk #accused #violating #nondisclosure #agreement
The legal team of the social network criticizes the billionaire for having mentioned the calculation method aimed at evaluating the proportion of false accounts that is at the center of the redemption process.
The tone continues to rise again between Twitter and Elon Musk, who announced on Friday the suspension of the acquisition of the social network “pending details on the calculations according to which fake accounts and spam actually represent less than 5% of users” (of 229 million). ).
The billionaire thus evoked on his Twitter account an annoying call from the legal team of the social network:
The latter criticizes the takeover bid candidate for having publicly mentioned the confidential method used internally to accurately assess this ratio.
In fact, Elon Musk has explained that his team was going to analyze a “sample of 100 accounts” because “this is what Twitter uses to calculate this 5% counterfeit/spam.” Which causes the anger of the blue bird teams.
Especially since this Sunday, Elon Musk gave a layer of it by challenging this figure of 5%. “Most likely, there are over 90% daily active users. It is very surprising that the most popular tweets of all time have only received ‘likes’ from 2% of daily active users,” he writes…
The proportion of fake accounts is “a key indicator” for Twitter, says Susannah Streeter, market analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, because “calculating the exact number of people actually tweeting is seen as crucial for future revenue streams. via advertising or paid subscriptions on the site”.
indicator wrench
Among this estimated 5% of fake accounts, we find mainly “bots”, automated accounts behind which is a robot. These are mostly empty shells, which are also found on other social networks.
Financially, these “fake accounts” directly affect the company’s results. If the latter has tried to diversify his income, in particular by offering paid subscriptions, its business model is largely based on advertising. The advertising itself obviously depends on the number of users.
However, by buying Twitter, Elon Musk is also buying its “monetizable” users, that is, all users who have been exposed to an ad at least once on the social network.
In case the proportion of fake accounts exceeds 5%, this could have an impact not only on advertising, but also distort the forecasts of paid subscriptions. A situation that could push Elon Musk to lower your offer of $44 billion.