Apparently Twitter claims only 5% of users are bots. It seems impossible to me that this claim is remotely true, and I imagine Musk knows this. This kind of sounds to me like he's decided he doesn't want to buy and is creating a reason not to.
I can't find the exact wording right now, but I recall when I read their original statement from Twitter the number came with several caveats and conditions. Basically they didn't say that only 5% of accounts where bots, but that of accounts that fulfil criteria A, B, C and D, only 5% are bots.
edit: the full information is on page 5 of their Q-10 here [1].
[1] https://investor.twitterinc.com/financial-information/sec-fi...
> We define mDAU as people, organizations, or other accounts who logged in or were otherwise authenticated and accessed Twitter on any given day through twitter.com, Twitter applications that are able to show ads, or paid Twitter products, including subscriptions. Average mDAU for a period represents the number of mDAU on each day of such period divided by the number of days for such period
> We have performed an internal review of a sample of accounts and estimate that the average of false or spam accounts during the first quarter of 2022 represented fewer than 5% of our mDAU during the quarter
You can offer to buy a house knowing full well there are going to be problems which will show up in the surveyor's report. You can then adjust your offer accordingly. This offer will likely reflect what you were willing to pay all along.
A low initial offer would be rejected since, at that point, the problems were not public knowledge. Now they are public knowledge, accepting a revised low offer may be the only option left?
I've mentioned this story elsewhere but it's still relevant...
Year's ago I had a few twitter accounts that I was holding purely for the handle/name. I never followed anyone or tweeted anything, they were dormant accounts and I rarely logged in.
After a couple of years these accounts were following random celebrities, rock bands and public figures. It seemed obvious at the time that twitter were using dormant accounts to bolster follower numbers and I expect this has been happening on a huge scale for years.
So, bots aside, twitter's numbers are the stuff of dreams and fairy tales.
I read someone calling Musk the idiot and confidently stating twitter would run their bot checks against the entire userbase because they're competent. Then Musk tweeted their internal check is literally from a sample size of 100. Next twitter called him to say he violated NDA by publicly disclosing that fact.
Twitter does not come off as an honest company. They don't use a standard measurement for DAU, they admitted to inflating the numbers on top of that, and now we know their bot check for what, 100MM+ accounts was from n=100?? I honestly hope he tanks their stock price when he backs out and buys them for $10b or something.
Literally every single news outlet -- just search online for "musk twitter due diligence"
Some selected sources:
- https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-26/twitter-t...
- https://www.ft.com/content/f60b6385-eef6-461e-9fcc-b3cb999a7...
- https://www.reuters.com/technology/musk-says-44-billion-twit...
- https://news.sky.com/story/elon-musks-pause-on-twitter-takeo...
I don't care if every news outlet is saying it, where is the source of this? Sadaam also had WMD's according to every news outlet. I know Musk moves quick and frantically sometimes, but it's hard to believe he waived DD. And if he did, why would he be doing any DD now?
Given that the deal has been agreed upon and the requisite SEC filings are in place, it's reasonable to assume that either the due diligence was fully completed by rockstar 10x financiers in this ridiculously short period of time, or some extreme shortcuts were taken. I tend to lean towards the latter reasoning from some experience in this space, so it's not much of a leap for me to believe the news sources that I linked above, Saddam's non-existent WMDs notwithstanding.
> I don't care if every news outlet is saying it, where is the source of this?
Some quotes from the FT paywalled link:
>> As one person involved in the debt financing explained, the due diligence “was easy. There was none. Not in the classic sense.”
>> [Musk's] wealth eased concerns for many lenders, which accelerated due diligence processes at the behest of Morgan Stanley, Musk’s financial adviser and one of the biggest lenders on the deal.
> And if he did, why would he be doing any DD now?
My speculation is a combination of sticker shock and buyers' remorse.
I think you mean home inspector, not surveyor?
Problems:
1) The home inspection contingency has to be in the offer.
2) The buyer has to hire a professional, independent home inspector. You can't just send in anyone and make up stuff.
3) The seller has the opportunity to remedy any problems that arise in the inspection report. So in this case, by analogy, Twitter could do a mass purge of accounts under looser criteria than usual, taking out a bunch of spammers and likely a bunch of innocent accounts at the same time. Then the deal would still have to go through at the original price.
In home buying, I've never heard of anyone taking this strategy you're suggesting. It would be reckless and probably not work as you hoped. Once an offer is accepted by the seller, it's very hard to get out. If you suspect there are significant problems with the house that need repair, and the seller knows there are significant problems, it would be extremely extremely dumb to make a higher offer than you'd pay, hoping the home inspection will save you.
Haha, no, our system is likely worse.
To make an analogy, it's like if I asked you why you're talking about home buying. ;-)
I hate twitter but have an account I barely ever log into and have never tweeted anything. If you want bots to be lower then count me in the sample. If you want bots to be higher don't count me since I am not really active.
If you want bots to be lower then take the sample at 4am EST on a Tuesday of US users.
If you want bots to be higher take the sample right after a major news story breaks.
Instead of 5% you could say 10 million active bots a month to make the number sound higher too.
If he's seriously worried about bots _now_, he's stupid (or high?)
The other explanation is that there is a bigger scheme, maybe involving a reason to sell some Tesla stock. That's possible, but it seems a little too complex to be actually true.
The filing by Twitter: https://investor.twitterinc.com/financial-information/sec-fi...
The relevant paragraph: "We have performed an internal review of a sample of accounts and estimate that the average of false or spam accounts during the first quarter of 2022 represented fewer than 5% of our mDAU during the quarter. The false or spam accounts for a period represents the average of false or spam accounts in the samples during each monthly analysis period during the quarter. In making this determination, we applied significant judgment, so our estimation of false or spam accounts may not accurately represent the actual number of such accounts, and the actual number of false or spam accounts could be higher than we have estimated."
Basically, I feel like there is no legal substance to Elon Musk's "excuse".
Bloomberg's article points out that this sort of desperate copout is not possible under the merger deal that Elon Musk signed, and even if Twitter decided not to push for a legal dispute they are automatically entitled to a $1B payment from Elon Musk.