OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Former President Donald Trump has weighed in on what he believes is the future of billionaire Elon Musk’s Twitter purchase.
He made the comments during a rally Saturday in Austin where he said his Truth Social app “blows Twitter away” and “everybody loves it — especially the engagement.”
“I don’t believe he’s going to buy Twitter because you have so many fake accounts, the bots, all of the different things,” the former president said of Musk. “I think it’s going to be very interesting.”
Trump says Musk has a lot of problems before he promotes his own social media platform “Troth Social” pic.twitter.com/tFcuSWjCd5
— Acyn (@Acyn) May 14, 2022
This week Musk explained his thinking after he sent a tweet that said his deal to purchase Twitter was “on hold.”
Musk tweeted early on Friday morning that the deal was “on hold” in response to a story that showed Twitter claimed spam and bot accounts comprise less than 5 percent of its users.
“Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users,” he said.
Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of usershttps://t.co/Y2t0QMuuyn
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 13, 2022
Hours later he said, “Still committed to acquisition.”
Still committed to acquisition
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 13, 2022
“Twitter Inc estimated in a filing on Monday that false or spam accounts represented fewer than 5% of its monetizable daily active users during the first quarter,” the Reuters story said.
“The social media company had 229 million users who were served advertising in the first quarter,” it said.
“The disclosure came days after Tesla Inc Chief Executive Elon Musk, who has inked a deal to buy Twitter for $44 billion, tweeted that one of his priorities would be to remove “’spam bots’ from the platform,” it said.
Hours after his tweet he went on to explain what his issues are as he responded to tweets from other Twitter users.
“The bots are angry at being counted,” he said in one tweet.
The bots are angry at being counted 🤣
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 14, 2022
“Elon, can you elaborate a bit on the ‘process’? So that we as Twitter can help you in finding out the real percentage of scam/spam/bot accounts,” one twitter user said.
“Any sensible random sampling process is fine. If many people independently get similar results for % of fake/spam/duplicate accounts, that will be telling. I picked 100 as the sample size number, because that is what Twitter uses to calculate <5% fake/spam/duplicate,” Musk responded.
Any sensible random sampling process is fine. If many people independently get similar results for % of fake/spam/duplicate accounts, that will be telling.
I picked 100 as the sample size number, because that is what Twitter uses to calculate <5% fake/spam/duplicate.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 14, 2022
“You didn’t think about this before offering $44 billion to buy the company?” another user said.
“I relied upon the accuracy of Twitter’s public filings,” the billionaire said.
I relied upon the accuracy of Twitter’s public filings
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 14, 2022
And one Twitter user’s comment Musk found “interesting” said that “I think between 42-69% of my new daily followers are bots. Not even joking. Sarah048527054 with 3 tweets, 0 followers and a 3 month old account is basically half of my news followers. Unsure if these are regularly purged. I hope so.”
Interesting
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 14, 2022
“Why followers of that account, specifically? Why not yours?” another said.
“Pick any account with a lot of followers,” he responded.
Pick any account with a lot of followers
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 14, 2022
The Tesla, Space X and Starlink CEO also made waves when he got into politics with comments on President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.
“Even though I think a less divisive candidate would be better in 2024, I still think Trump should be restored to Twitter,” Musk tweeted.
“Biden’s mistake is that he thinks he was elected to transform the country, but actually everyone just wanted less drama,” he wrote in a second tweet.
Even though I think a less divisive candidate would be better in 2024, I still think Trump should be restored to Twitter
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 12, 2022
Biden’s mistake is that he thinks he was elected to transform the country, but actually everyone just wanted less drama
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 12, 2022
He also sent somewhat of a warning to one-time friends and associates of the late pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.
A Twitter user asked Musk recently: “It says it all that we heard more about Will Smith slapping Chris Rock than we heard about Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial. It is also ‘interesting’ that the account tracking the Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial got banned when it gained traction.”
Where is their “client” list? Shouldn’t at least one of them go down!?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 2, 2022
The Tesla and SpaceX founder responded: “Where is their ‘client’ list? Shouldn’t at least one of them go down?”
