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>>Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users He is asking for pr
by pdevr 4y ago
>>Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users
He is asking for proof that spam and fake accounts are less than 5% of total users. He obviously believes the number is much higher[1]. This does not seem to be a deal killer - he is just calling their bluff[2]. Maybe they are right. Maybe not. We will see. Interesting times!
[1] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1517215066550116354 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1517215066550116354
[2] https://www.reuters.com/technology/twitter-estimates-spam-fake-accounts-represent-less-than-5-users-filing-2022-05-02/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/twitter-estimates-spam-fa...
- onion2k 4y agoThis does not seem to be a deal killer - he is just calling their bluff What does he gain by calling their bluff?
- rendall 4y agoMaybe negotiating tactic?
- RF_Savage 4y agoParhaps a lower price?
- ceejayoz 4y agoGetting out of the deal after the recent stock slump? Without the $1B penalty fee?
- basisword 4y agoReduction in price.
- raverbashing 4y agoI'm always amazed when that kind of question pops up. Because it shows how knowledge of basic business practices is less circulated. If you're selling me a house and saying it's one size but in practice it's another you bet I'm taking it up with you! I can be happy to buy it as is (depending on the case) but this says a lot about the seller.
- d3nj4l 4y agoIf you signed a deal to buy a house without checking the size it's on you.
- raverbashing 4y agoYes, that's why most large deals allow for due diligence before the deal effectively closes
- d3nj4l 4y agoIf you’re waiting until after signing a deal to do basic due diligence, especially on supposedly material information that didn’t even exist at the time you made your offer - Twitter reported the 5% figure in May, Elon made his offer in April - it is, 100%, unambiguously, on you.
- MichaelZuo 4y agoHas Twitter ever provided that kind of info to anyone? Why wouldn't they wait until money is already on the table? I just don't see how they would have benefited by disclosing real numbers beforehand. It's far more likely no one could have done due diligence outside of the executives and top engineers at Twitter.
- d3nj4l 4y agoNone of that matters, because Elon can’t claim to be mislead by a figure that didn’t exist when he made his offer. Whatever he expected it to be has nothing to do with twitter saying it is 5% in May.
- MichaelZuo 4y agoI dont think its fair to expect Elon, or anyone, to have done due diligence beforehand in a situation when it would have been impossible to collect the relevant info without some shady tactics. Unless you mean his team should have employed shady tactics to gather that info.? Sure he may be employing this as a stalling tactic, but there’s no obligation for him to treat the Twitter folks with kid glove either. This is what high stakes negotiations are about.
- JohnJamesRambo 4y agoIt feels absurd for this to come up at this stage in a deal.
- throwawaylinux 4y agoWhy? What is the deal and what stage is it up to?
- Naga 4y agoAgreed. This sort of issue has been public knowledge about Twitter for a long time. This sounds to me like an excuse to delay or get out with plausible deniability.
- mikkergp 4y agoWhile this is true it would be a huge deal if Twitter lied about it on paper.
- taytus 4y agoThat 5% number is cited in Twitter’s s1 from 2013.
- loceng 4y agoIt came out recently they have/had been misreporting (overly) user numbers, so this external pressure which they're now forced to deal arguably won't allow any hidden manipulation to stay hidden. So it may be a question of just how dishonest Twitter has been, which could/should result in shareholders suing them as well.
- Hedepig 4y agoThey are quite transparent the number could be much higher
- sneak 4y agoPublic knowledge? Where are the authoritative, due-diligence-level public statements on the topic of fake Twitter accounts?
- cm2187 4y agoOr perhaps it is linked to the firing of executives, that seemed to puzzle people.
- RivieraKid 4y agoOMG. I'm astonished that people still can't see through his lies and BS. It took me about 3 seconds to realize that after the stock market crashed, Elon wanted to get a better price. The 5% stuff is just a random excuse.
- ohgodplsno 4y agoAlso, his collateral for the buyout is Tesla stock, which took a 20% dip. If people believed he would truly buy at $54, they would let the deal go through and make bank. The fact that they are still selling down to $34 means that everyone is seeing through Elon's bullshit.
- parkingrift 4y agoOr, alternatively, Twitter is a shit show behind the scenes and Musk is seeing red flags in diligence.
- hooande 4y agoThere isn't formal due diligence, he's already made the offer. He doesn't (legally) have access to any information that he didn't have access to weeks ago.
- gsibble 4y agoOf course there is formal due diligence. He basically gave them a term sheet and now they've opened their books. That's why he can walk away and pay $1 billion if he doesn't like what he sees.
- josho 4y agoWhat due diligence occurs when buying a public company? We already have access to the company’s financial filings.
- outworlder 4y ago
- itsoktocry 4y ago>He is asking for proof that spam and fake accounts are less than 5% of total users. Considering he said this was a big reason for his purchase, you'd think the world's smartest man would have had his team do this due diligence? Instead, he mad an offer on a whim and put the deal together in a couple days. Brilliant.
- XorNot 4y agoUnless the contract had a clause requiring this to be demonstrated if requested. In which case it's a good way to get out of it at to he last moment: activate the clause and put Twitter in trouble if they disprove their own statements.
- that_guy_iain 4y agoNoob question, but wouldn't it be fraud if the number is higher than they're saying?
- Hedepig 4y agoThe contract explicitly states the number could be much higher than their estimate, so although IANAL, I doubt it.
- that_guy_iain 4y agoFraud isn't about the contract, it's about if someone lies to obtain money. Saying the stats are x when they're y because x sounds better seems like standard fraud to me.
- jquery 4y agoNo. It would only be fraud if they knew the methodology was likely to be extremely flawed and there are receipts with executives saying “let’s choose this because of X nefarious reason.” Twitter being wrong about the number, or using a methodology Elon doesn’t like, isn’t enough.
- 4y ago
- paulcole 4y agoIf this guy’s such a genius why didn’t he ask for proof sooner? He’s looking for any excuse to pull the plug.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- tmaly 4y agoBy what criteria can you determine an account is spam/fake? That seems like a difficult thing to determine.
- piva00 4y agoSolving to detect the signal and solving to resolve the problem is the same solution... Paradoxical engineering.
- jonny_eh 4y ago> We will see. Interesting times! I'm sorry, but what a worthless thing to say. I can't stand it when pundits say this.
- spiderice 4y agoThe irony of this comment..
- nailer 4y ago> He obviously believes the number is much higher[1] That reference - "If our twitter bid succeeds, we will defeat the spam bots or die trying!" - does not assert your claim.
- not2b 4y agoHe's not entitled to such proof. It isn't a condition of the purchase agreement. His choices are: pay the original price, or pay the $1 billion cancellation fee. There might be a third choice: Twitter could offer to renegotiate, but they aren't obliged to. They could take the $1 billion instead.
- AshamedCaptain 4y agoYou can estimate yourself from the comfort of your own home how many accounts are spam. Just make a list of 100 random accounts. Truly random, not just "followers of X" or whatever. Then manually look each of them and classify as spam or not. There's your percentage. If you want more accuracy, hire some people from say Amazon's Mechanical Turk and do 1000. 10k.
- madrox 4y agoI used this exact method a decade ago (thanks statistics 101) to estimate and got 10% with a minuscule margin of error. That was a decade ago though.
- outworlder 4y agoSome data here: https://botsentinel.com/ https://botsentinel.com/
- phailhaus 4y agoElon already signed. There is literally no such thing as "putting it on hold." See Matt Levine's latest column, he can't even back out if it turns out there are more than 5% spam/fake accounts. [1] He's playing games because he's the richest man in the world and if you try to hold him accountable he will make your life hell. He's really shown his true colors these last few years, absolutely no respect for him anymore. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-05-13/elon-musk-trolls-twitter https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-05-13/elon-m...
- xenospn 4y agoI came to the exact same conclusion. He's turning into Gru, with his own little army of sad minions.