Musk May Cancel Twitter Deal Due to Alleged Lack of User Data Transparency

Twitter released a letter from Elon Musk’s legal team this morning in a new SEC filing. It expresses dissatisfaction with the company’s given information concerning the level of “spam and phony accounts” on its service. This is the same worry that the technology tycoon has expressed frequently since his Twitter deal comes out to the world.

Twitter Deal Might Get Cancelled

According to the letter, Musk views Twitter’s “latest offer to simply provide extra info concerning the company’s testing methods, either through verbal explanations or written materials, [as] tantamount to refusing [his] data requests,” which the SpaceX and Tesla CEO claims will help “facilitate his evaluation of spam and fake accounts on the company’s platform.”

More data (rather than just an explanation of how the present data was collected) on Twitter’s non-human users — both spam and natural — is critical to closing the deal from a financial standpoint. “As Twitter’s potential owner, Mr. Musk has a clear right to the requested data to prepare for the transfer of Twitter’s business to his possession and aid his transaction finance,” the letter states.

Musk’s Statements

Musk has made several statements concerning how Twitter counts non-human users in the aftermath of his multiple endeavours first to dominate the social network and then buy it outright. After Twitter’s CEO, Parag Agrawal, authored a thread about how the firm tackles spam and bots, Musk went so far as to tweet excrement-themed emojis at him on the social media platform.

We have a clear threat from Musk’s staff that he will leave if he doesn’t obtain additional details. We’ll leave it to you to decide whether Musk’s demands are reasonable. However, the circumstance poses an intriguing conundrum. If Twitter wants to make Musk pay the agreed-upon sum, it might give in and release additional information.

Also read: Microsoft is Testing a New Update for its App Store