Elon Musk suggested on Monday he was open to renegotiating a $44 billion deal to buy Twitter as he escalated a clash with the company’s CEO …
Elon Musk suggested on Monday he was open to renegotiating a $44 billion deal to buy Twitter as he escalated a clash with the company’s CEO over bots on the social network. At a conference in Miami, Musk said that a deal at a lower price isn’t “out of the question”, according to Bloomberg News. Last week, the entrepreneur tweeted that the deal, which includes a $1 billion termination fee, was “temporarily on hold.”
Musk has indicated that Twitter’s estimates of bots on the social network are his main concern about the deal. The company has estimated that about 5% of its daily users are actually false or spam accounts. The new comments have raised expectations the deal, which has already had soap opera turns, may not be completed. Shares of Twitter fell more than 8% to $37.39, well below the $54.20 agreed to by Musk and the company’s board of directors. An attorney representing Musk didn’t respond to a request for comment. Twitter declined to comment. Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, estimates that the deal as it currently stands has a less than 50% chance of going through.
