The businessman’s rather unexpected decision comes as he awaits details on the proportion of fake accounts run by the powerful little bluebird company.
This decision of the richest man in the world made the group’s share price lose about 11% in electronic trading before the opening of Wall Street, according to the weekly Le Monde.
”The acquisition of Twitter is temporarily suspended pending details that spam and fake accounts represent far less than 5% of the number of users” wrote Elon Musk on his account. No reaction so far from Twitter.
However, the billionaire says he is still committed to the acquisition of Twitter, specifying that his plan to take over the social network includes a vast operation to fight against fake accounts and spam.
As you may recall, the social network announced on April 25 that it had accepted Elon Musk’s takeover offer, which was said to be ready to pay $54.2 per share.
This represented a premium, that is to say a 54% increase compared to the opening price of the share on January 28, when the owner of Tesla began to invest in Twitter reports Le Monde.
In total, the businessman has put 43 billion euros on the table and claims to have been able to build the corresponding financing plan.
For several days, the possibility of a buyout had seemed to be slipping away, especially following the billionaire’s decision in mid-April not to sit on
board of directors of the company, of which he had become the main shareholder. As one of the most followed personalities, with more than 90 million subscribers, Musk had not stopped making criticisms against the company.
It should be noted that in his takeover plan, Elon Musk had promised to rid Twitter of spam, authenticate users and increase transparency, without specifying how he intended to implement this project. He had also expressed his desire to make the platform a bastion of free speech and said he was ready to reinstate the former U.S. President Donald Trump, whose account had been permanently suspended after the attack on the Capitol in January 2021.
Source: Le Monde