Elon Musk hints at paying less for Twitter than his USD 44 billion offer
Detroit (US)(AP): Tesla CEO Elon Musk gave the strongest hint yet Monday that he would like to pay less for Twitter than his USD 44 billion offer made last month.
Musk told a Miami technology conference that a viable deal at a lower price would not be out of the question, according to a report by Bloomberg News, which said it viewed a livestream video of the conference posted by a Twitter user.
Also at the All In Summit, Musk estimated that at least 20 per cent of Twitter's 229 million accounts are spam bots, percentage he said was at the low end of his assessment, according to the report.
The appearance came a few hours after Musk began trolling Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, who posted a series of tweets explaining his company's effort to fight bots and how it has consistently estimated that less than 5 per cent of Twitter accounts are fake.
In all, the day's events bolstered theories from analysts that Musk either wants out of the deal or is seeking a lower price, largely due to a huge decline in value of Tesla stock, some of which he has pledged to finance the Twitter acquisition.
Twitter shares closed Monday down just over 8 per cent at 37.39, below where the stock was just before Musk disclosed that he was Twitter's largest shareholder. Musk made the offer to buy Twitter for 54.20 per share on April 14.
On Friday Musk tweeted that his plan to buy Twitter was placed on temporary hold as he tried to pinpoint the number of fake accounts on the social media platform. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO said the hold was pending details of Twitter's calculation that fake accounts are less than 5 per cent of its users.
In tweets on Monday, Agrawal acknowledged Twitter isn't perfect at catching spam. He wrote that every quarter, the company has made the estimate of less than 5 per cent spam.
Our estimate is based on multiple human reviews of thousands of accounts that are sampled at random, consistently over time, Agrawal wrote.
Estimates for the last four quarters were all well under 5 per cent, he wrote. The error margins on our estimates give us confidence in our public statements each quarter.
Musk, using his favourite platform, responded with a smiling emoji of poop, then asked how Twitter's advertisers know what they're getting for their money.
Tesla shares closed Monday down nearly 6 per cent at USD 724.37. They have lost about one-third of their value since the trading day before Musk disclosed his Twitter stake.
Musk did not immediately return messages seeking comment. The All In Summit said in an email that it would post the video of Musk's appearance in the coming days.
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Instagram removes BJP’s post claiming Cong ‘will snatch wealth of non-muslims’ following backlash
New Delhi: An animated video post shared on BJP’s official Instagram handle, asserting that the Congress party would snatch wealth from non-Muslims to ‘distribute it to its favorite community of invaders,’ has sparked significant backlash. Following the uproar, the photo sharing platform has taken down the post, reports Newslaundry.com.
Meanwhile, it is uncertain whether the post was removed by the BJP or by Instagram following mass reporting by several users as “misinformation” and “hate speech”. The video depicted Rahul Gandhi holding the Congress manifesto which transforms into the logo of the Muslim league. Furthermore, it sought support for PM Modi from every ‘Bharatiya,’ who is also shown wearing a saffron turban.
According to the report, it also contained a clip of PM Modi alleging that the former PM Manmohan Singh had said, “Muslims have the first claim on our resources,” insinuating that if the Congress were to assume power, it would confiscate the money and assets of non-Muslims, redistributing them to Muslims, whom it favored. Labeling Muslims as ‘infiltrators’, the video depicted historical invaders as looters who plundered India's resources and suggested that the Congress party continues to empower individuals from the same community.
The video then communicated that the Congress party’s manifesto is “nothing but Muslim league’s ideology in disguise. If you are a non-Muslim, Congress will snatch your wealth and distribute it to Muslims.” It also slinged the BJP’s official slogan ‘abki baar, 400 paar,’ and called that it was the need of the hour, since Modi only has the “strength to stop the Congress party’s evil plans.”
Similar claims have also been made by several BJP leaders. Recently, Union Minister Anurag Thakur stated that the Congress intends to “Give your children's property to Muslims.”
