Conservatives around the nation were delighted to hear that Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, was preparing to purchase social media giant Twitter, believing that his commitment to free speech could return the platform to its most powerful state.
That’s because Musk isn’t one of the Silicon Valley progressives hellbent on imbuing their world view on the de facto public square. In fact, Musk’s hope was to “unlock” the app, allowing for a vast new world of public discourse that wouldn’t unfairly punish the right-wing opinion.
But now it seems as though that deal is on hold.
Elon Musk said Friday that his plan to buy Twitter is “temporarily on hold,” raising fresh doubts about whether he’ll proceed with the $44 billion acquisition.
Musk tweeted that he wanted to pinpoint the number of spam and fake accounts on the social media platform. Musk has been vocal about his desire to clean up Twitter’s problem with “spam bots” that mimic real people and appeared to question whether the company was underreporting them.
But Twitter has disclosed in regulatory filings that its bot estimates might be low for at least two years, leading some analysts to believe that Musk could be raising the issue as a reason to back out of the deal.
“Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users,” Musk tweeted Friday morning, indicating he’s skeptical that the number of inauthentic accounts is that low.
The billionaire did look to reassure Americans in a subsequent tweet.
Musk later tweeted that he’s “still committed to acquisition.” Neither Twitter nor Musk responded Friday to requests for comment.
Twitter has long been seen as a wasted opportunity as a communication tool, largely due to the steering of the company’s left-leaning leadership.
