Kevin Pavrath, a financial analyst and YouTuber who went to “Meet Kevin” who attended the conference, said Musk was asked if “at a different price could be a totally good deal.”
“I mean, that’s not out of the question,” according to Pavrat, who said he took contemporary notes. “The more questions I ask, the more fears I have.”
Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Musk’s comments on Monday indicated that he continues to do so distance: after Same of 44 billion dollars Deal To purchase the website, which was announced on April 25th. The Tesla CEO has quarreled with Twitter management over the issue of spam bots, fake accounts that often promote cryptocurrency and roaming scams, although analysts and some advisors have suggested that Musk’s focus on the issue is just an excuse to back out of the deal.
Tesla’s stock has fallen sharply since Musk’s interest in Twitter became public, and Musk’s net worth took a huge hit as a result. Much of Musk’s financing of the deal relied on Musk’s ability to use Tesla stock as collateral, similar to using the property to back a loan. Recently, a plunge in tech stocks prompted Musk to seek additional investors to reduce his equity commitment in the deal, because Musk pledged $21 billion of his net worth — largely restricted in Tesla stock — to buy the site.
Twitter shares fell sharply after Musk’s comments, closing at $37.39 on Monday – well below Musk’s offer of $54.20 per share. The deal was expected to expire later this year before Musk tweeted on Friday that he was holding “supporting pending details.” [Twitter’s] Calculate that spam/fake accounts actually account for less than 5% of users.”
Musk has indicated that he believes that spam accounts make up a much larger share of Twitter users. On Monday, he responded with a tube emoji to a thread on Twitter from the social network’s CEO, Parag Agrawal, that sought to explain his approach to counting. robots.
Musk had outlined his concerns about Twitter bots when asked to search for a lower price. He likened the case to buying a house with a termite problem. He said the house would be of less value if it was found to be mostly termites – when compared to someone who had a small problem of termites.
Ostensibly, Musk was explaining his frustrations at not being able to get what he sees as answers directly from Twitter.
For Paffrath, who was in the audience, it was clear that Musk was “laying the foundation or [had] I started renegotiating.”
Talking about the bot problem in Twitter Tweet embed He says it might be like buying a house when they say it’s 5 percent termites but you find out it’s actually 90 percent termites – he says the company didn’t cooperate with him # everything pic.twitter.com/dQxhRnUMJq
Josiah Daniel Ryan (@JosiahRyan) May 16 2022
Now with Musk’s comments at Monday’s technology conference, analysts have cast doubts on whether the deal will ever go away.
Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, wrote in a note. “[We] Twitter’s $44 billion deal shown as less than 50% [likelihood] To be done as of today… If a revised deal is made by Musk and Twitter, it will likely be at a lower price.”
Meanwhile, Twitter released a new company filing late Monday in which the company answered questions about whether it will lay off workers or whether its content moderation practices will change. But the document gave few answers other than saying that the company’s practices would continue in the same vein as before for the time being. The phrase “business as usual” was repeated nine times in the filing.
Elizabeth Duskin contributed to this report.
“Infuriatingly humble alcohol fanatic. Unapologetic beer practitioner. Analyst.”