Twitter’s Spam/Bot Boilerplate, Which Elon Musk Says He’s Paused Deal Over, Goes Back Nearly a Decade

variety.com:

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorIs Elon Musk getting cold feet over his $44 billion bid for Twitter — or is he just trying to drive the price tag down?Early Friday, the mega-billionaire tweeted that his deal for the social network was “temporarily on hold,” citing the need to conduct due diligence on Twitter’s claim that fake and spam accounts represent less than 5% of its active user base.

He linked to a Reuters story based on Twitter’s latest quarterly 10-Q with the information.However, that disclosure has been in Twitter’s SEC filings for years — literally since the company first went public in 2013.

It’s right there in the Twitter S-1 registration statement: “We currently estimate that false or spam accounts represent less than 5% of our [monthly active users].” Since then, Twitter has regularly reported that same stat in its filings, updated for when it shifted from reporting monthly to daily active users starting in Q4 2018.

Musk shouldn’t have been surprised by Twitter’s spam/bot estimate. So what’s really going on?“Many will view this as Musk using this Twitter filing [about] spam accounts as a way to get out of this deal in a vastly changing market,” Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives wrote in a research note. “The implications of this tweet will send this Twitter circus show into a Friday the 13th horror show as now the Street will view this deal as 1) likely falling apart, 2) Musk negotiating for a lower deal price, or 3) Musk simply walking away from the deal with a $1 billion breakup fee.”In a follow-up tweet Friday, Musk said he was “still committed to acquisition.” Still, on the announcement that he was pausing the Twitter deal, shares of the company plunged more than 9% in early trading.