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I think I've missed something here. Why would Elon not want to buy twitter if it has >5% spam accounts? Isn't the number of fake accounts one of the reasons he wanted to buy it in the first place? I don't understand why this would make him want to back out. It doesn't seem to be in conflict with any of the reasons he wants to buy.

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You are reading his reasoning on face value. It is suggested that the reason is a ruse to back away from the original deal in that he either wants to renegotiate the price or walk away completely.

Given how all other tech stocks are fareing right now, he definitely wants to renegotiate. It will be interesting to see what the boards does. Right now Musk is the only thing holding up their stock price. And if they hold him to paying the billion, he's just going to carp from the sidelines. Maybe they should let him out of deal, but close his account?

The problem for the twitter board was that no one else was interested at the valuation. The problem for Musk is that if he walks away first he has to pay $1bn - which he doesn't want to do, and second that if he comes back the board can find someone else to buy it, or just say no to him on the basis that he's not acting in good faith.

He has to pay 1 billion to Twitter if he backs down from the deal. This could be a way to get out of paying that.

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