Musk cools talks with investors and seriously jeopardizes the purchase of Twitter

The purchase of Twitter by Elon Musk is in serious danger, as revealed on Friday by The Washington Post, which cited several people familiar with the situation. According to the American newspaper, the tycoon’s team has concluded that the social network’s figures on false accounts are not verifiable, which has led the founder of Tesla to stop participating in talks with investors to finance the purchase for 44,000 million. dollars (about 43,260 million euros at current exchange rates).

Musk’s environment assures that they cannot confirm the fake bots and users, despite having had access to internal data from the social network, with which they see it as impossible to evaluate Twitter’s business prospects. Musk had made it a requirement for the purchase that the number of false accounts be below 5%. And, although those responsible for the social network insist that the bots are around that figure, Musk suspects that the number may be around 20%.

One of the people consulted by the aforementioned newspaper said that a change in the direction of the Musk team is likely to come soon, but did not say what he thought it would be. In any case, the fake accounts do not seem to be the only reason that would lead Musk to want to end the agreement with Twitter. The shares of the social network have fallen more than 30% since the tycoon launched the takeover bid for the company last April, which would lead him to think that he is overpaying for it.

Twitter shares continue to move away from the $54.2 per share offered by Musk. In the middle of the session this Friday, they fell almost 4%, to 37.2 dollars.

Twitter, meanwhile, insists that it intends to close the operation, and experts trust that it will fight for it “for the good of the shareholders”, since they believe that the social network, which initially opposed the purchase of Musk, It would be a weaker company if the takeover bid does not prosper, according to The Washington Post.

In the market this operation was questioned from the beginning and it has always been speculated that the false accounts argument is an excuse to lower the price of the bid or abandon it. However, the tycoon has been giving one of lime and another of sand and last June he had his first (virtual) meeting with Twitter employees, where he suggested that he was determined to close the deal, and assured that he had big plans for the service. .

Beyond the doubts about the purchase, Twitter has announced in the last few hours that it is laying off 30% of its human resources division. The cuts come after the company announced in May that it would freeze new hires in an effort to cut costs. The layoffs are expected to affect fewer than 100 people. Musk told Facebook employees in June that “the costs outweighed the benefits,” making “the situation not very good.”