Twitter official: The number of robot accounts on the Twitter platform accounts for less than 5%

Will Elon Musk actually buy Twitter after all? Fortunes could be made and lost depending on the outcome of this seemingly innocuous question. After all, the world's richest man has a unique knack for giving even the most mundane elements a dramatic spin. So why should the fate of the global city square be any different?

As many of you know, Musk found – or so skeptics said – that the biggest stumbling block to his Twitter acquisition being finalized was the number of bots, or fake accounts, that were flooding the social media giant’s daily active users (DAUs) metric.

Twitter doubled down on its previous stance on the issue. In a dedicated briefing, executives said the company removes about 1 million spam accounts a day and that less than 5% of active accounts on Twitter are bots or spam accounts.

However, Musk has repeatedly questioned the authenticity of this statement. In addition, Israeli technology company Cyabra recently concluded that 13.7% of Twitter profiles are fake accounts.

To address the issue, Twitter has given Musk access to its firehose — a massive internal data stream that includes more than 500 million tweets posted every day. However, it is unclear whether Musk has accepted the veracity of Twitter's claims that it is linked to bot accounts.

Meanwhile, betting markets continue to be negative on Musk's ability or willingness to complete the Twitter acquisition deal.

For example, as shown above, BetUS currently gives a 60% probability that Musk will not complete his Twitter acquisition by December 31, 2022. On the other hand, the betting market gives a 47.6% probability that the deal will be completed before the end of this year.

Of course, BetUS is just one cog in the wider world of betting. Still, it does give a hint of the general mood.

Even more troubling is that the spread between Musk's offer price of $54.20 per share for Twitter and the current share price remains as wide as ever. That is, Twitter's share price is currently trading at $38.95, which is a discount of about 28% relative to Musk's acquisition price. Such a huge spread suggests that the market is unwilling to lock in the deal under current conditions. After all, many Wall Street analysts continue to point out that although the social media giant's board of directors has approved the initial deal, Musk's original offer is likely to be renegotiated and lowered.

From cnBeta.COM