Musk Says $44-billion Twitter Deal On Hold

[engine]

Elon Musk has put his deal to buy twitter [webmasterworld.com] temporarily on hold while there is clarification over the number of spam and fake accounts.

"Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users," Musk told his more than 92 million Twitter followers on Friday.

[reuters.com...]

[brotherhood of LAN]

Bit of a can of worms surely given how to define spam/fake. I'd guess multiple accounts belonging to the one entity is one way of measuring.

[engine]

Forgive me for being a bit thick: If I was spending $44 billion i'd want to do due diligence first.
He sure shoots from the hip, eh!

[brotherhood of LAN]

I guess it depends on how many billions you have to spare! Perhaps he was willing to pay that but resistance means resistance returned.

No denying there's a political element given the leverage of social media.

[Marshall]

This is wrong. Just plain wrong.

[phranque]

... put his deal to buy twitter temporarily on hold ...

is that a thing?

Forgive me for being a bit thick:

we did that a while ago...

If I was spending $44 billion i'd want to do due diligence first.

at the time he made the deal, a $44.20 stock price wouldn't have flown.
i'm guessing the pushback is coming from investors such as Ellison, who actually care about each billion invested.

[tangor]

I suspect that due diligence is CONFIRMING t's number of only 5% bots/spam is correct. When there have been (many years worth) of reports the number is higher, it doesn't hurt to make sure.

This is on t to prove, not the other way around.

[lucy24]

Dog Bites Man, surely? It was estimated at the outset that the paperwork alone would take six months.

[tangor]

Might take a year or more! Meanwhile, it is on t to come up with the real numbers as soon as possible as any delay is seeing the stock price shrivel and dribble!

That said, there's no doubt that t is riddled with bots---the question is HOW MANY?

[topr8]

i'm sure musk has done this for a reason ... even if people can't work out why.

[brotherhood of LAN]

Rand Fishkin puts the number at 19.42% [sparktoro.com]

sparktoro.com SparkToro & Followerwonk Joint Twitter Analysis: 19.42% of Active Accounts Are Fake or Spam - SparkToro TL;DR - From May 13-15, 2022, SparkToro and Followerwonk conducted a rigorous, joint analysis of five datasets including a variety of active (i.e.

[tangor]

Musk now says the deal is on hold (though still committed to carry through) until the bot numbers can be determined. (May 17)

No desire to buy a platform that MIGHT end up in litigation if the bots are GREATER than 5% as the numbers of litigants could grow by leaps and bounds!

[engine]

There are good bots, and well as spam bots, and I wonder if this is being taken into account. Somehow, I doubt it.

For example:-
Bad bot: Tweeting more spam. Spam being a very broad topic these days and is no longer just about meds.
Good bot: River level bot sends stats regularly allowing authorities and individuals to know water levels in advance of the potential for flooding.

[Dimitri]

Peace first, then ...

To me Elon never had the intention to buy Twitter, he just like to create buzz and chaos.... we'll see how it ends.

[jimji]

Is this the only thread about this Twitter business? I ask because I am surprised there are no updates, as of the past 24 to 48 hours --- I think.

He stated intentions to not make the deal and the Twitter present owners are trying to use the court system to make him follow through with the deal.

Seems to me, though, if the courts were to force him to make the deal he could just let it fall apart out of a lack of interest and not sweat the loss of bunches of dollars as he already has other means of income.

Anyway, this is sort of an update. I'm not so sure that Musk fella is in my league. I'm way, way down the ladder on this sort of thing. I don't even have a billion pennies to throw around, let alone a billion big ones.

But it does add to the basic education about this whole Internet business that a site like Twitter can be worth that sort of money. I worked as an admin for a media company many years ago and we had over thirty thousand members and thousands active every week and were very busy and that owner back then didn't get near a billion dollars when he sold it. I am seriously not remembering exactly how many years ago that was, but about twenty years ago. And in just twenty years that sort of site could be worth a whole bunch more money. 44 billion for Twitter. That is a whole mess of dollars, isn't it? I thought Mr. Musk was into cars and rockets, or some such hardware stuff. What's he want with something like a Twitter product? That kind of product, like this site, is a whole lot of work to make it a good place to be. I'm actually glad I'm basically retired.

[jimji]

Well, this thread seems to be of no interest to anyone, but I'll post, anyway.

Did a bit of checking into this and the information about the Delaware courts as they relate to corporate battles is mighty interesting.

[tangor]

Delaware Chancery is an equity court, not a court of law. Corporations tend to have their legal issues decided there. :)

[jimji]

Yes, and I just found out that I am actually just another piece of garbage around here,

9:54 am on Jul 13, 2022 (gmt 0)

29 minutes after my post on the same date a new thread was started on this very topic and no notice was placed here and that sure makes me feel like the really stupid jerk I always knew I was.

But the "No Notice Needed Here" message is very, very clear. Even a jerk like me can get that one.

Well, I better go find out where this community dumps its garbage and join that crowd. I sure ain't welcome around here, am !?

Well, at least this has a little more style than getting banned. And new one for me. Better wear my best suit when I go visit the others that got dumped on that garbage pile. Gotta look sharp.

[tangor]

29 minutes after my post on the same date a new thread was started on this very topic and no notice was placed here and that sure makes me feel like the really stupid jerk I always knew I was.

Heh! In the 17 years I have been here I've lost count of how many times threads started by me were "hi-jacked" by a competing thread. "Stuff" happens.

Actually, there's nothing personal (well, I can't really say that since I do not speak for others), but I get the feeling some might. Having survived a number of "quiet deletes" of my comments over the years hardened the hide a bit.

[lucy24]

For ages I thought {longtime member} was ignoring my posts in one subforum. I finally figured out that he, like me, would open a bunch of threads in tabs. Then if I or anyone else happened to post while he already had the thread open, he wouldn't see the new material. (Must have been awfully confusing to the various thread originators, getting multiple overlapping replies to their question, with no indication that the various responders were aware of each other's existence.)

In the present case, however, the topic had already moved to a newer thread.