All scenarios
Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal said in a series of tweets several hours later that while he expected the deal to be completed, the company should be “prepared for all scenarios,” adding: “I will not use the deal as an excuse to avoid making important decisions about the company’s health.” And no Twitter leader will do that.
Fighting fake accounts has been a cornerstone of Musk’s attempt to reform Twitter. In a statement announcing his deal to buy the company last month, he revealed his desire to defeat “spam bots”, verify that all accounts belong to real humans, and make their algorithms open source. Musk also said he wanted to make the platform a bulwark for freedom of expression, and remove barriers to moderating content.
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The use of bots on Twitter is currently allowed, although under company policy, these accounts are supposed to indicate that they are automated. The platform has also named “good” bots, such as the “@tinycarebot” account, an account that tweets reminders of self-care. However, spam bots are not allowed, and the company has policies aimed at combating them.
Doubts have grown in recent days about Musk’s ability to back out of his Twitter takeover, and that the businessman might consider lowering his bid price for the micro-blogging site. The whole deal was an unorthodox move, with Musk going from being a “merely” prolific user to revealing he owns more than 9% of the company’s stock, then launching an unsolicited takeover offer, without detailed financing plans, within weeks. It all happened at once so quickly in part because Musk gave up the opportunity to look at Twitter’s finances beyond what is publicly available.
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