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Elon Musk Gives Update On Twitter Purchase

Photo of Carmine Sabia Carmine SabiaMay 14, 2022
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OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.

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Elon Musk has 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.

Hours later he said, “Still committed to acquisition.”

“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 tot weets from other Twitter users.

“The bots are angry at being counted,” he said in one tweet.

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“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.

“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.

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.”

“Why followers of that account, specifically? Why not yours?” another said.

“Pick any account with a lot of followers,” he responded.

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.

He also sent somewhat of a warning to one-time friends and associates of the late pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.

Musk’s remarks came as Epstein’s confidante and fixer, Ghislaine Maxwell, who has been convicted of sex trafficking young women for his use, his friends, as well as his clients, got some good news from a judge as her case heads to sentencing.

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U.S. District Judge Alison J. Nathan denied Ghislaine’s request for a new trial but he did rule that three conspiracy counts can be charged as the same crime so she can only be sentenced for one of them.

“This legal conclusion in no way calls into question the factual findings made by the jury. Rather, it underscores that the jury unanimously found — three times over — that the Defendant is guilty of conspiring with Epstein to entice, transport, and traffic underage girls for sexual abuse,” Nathan noted in his ruling.

That said, even though the counts against Ghislaine have been reduced from five to three, that will only shave around 10 years off her sentence, according to one export, meaning she will still likely get over 40 years behind bars, which is essentially a life sentence for her.

However, as the MAGA Conservatives site notes, “one big thing remains”:

What about Jeffrey Epstein’s clients and friends. We know he hung out with high-powered wealthy men like Bill Clinton and Bill Gates.

Those two and others like Wall Street titan Leon Black are all saying they had no idea what Jeffrey Epstein was doing and regret giving him the credibility that came with meeting them.

But is that believable?

“At the time, I didn’t realize that by having those meetings it would be seen as giving him credibility. You’re almost saying, ‘I forgive that type of behavior,’ or something. So clearly the way it’s seen, I made a huge mistake not understanding that,” Microsoft founder and CEO Bill Gates said recently.

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His ex-wife, however, did not buy that excuse, talking to CBS’ Gayle King some weeks ago about their divorce: “It was many things. But I did not like that he’d had meetings with Jeffrey Epstein. I made that clear to him.”

She went on to say she met Epstein “exactly one time because I wanted to see who this man was. And I regretted it from the second I stepped in the door. He was abhorrent. He was evil personified.

“I had nightmares about it afterward. So my heart breaks for these young women.”

Now, Musk — who is now under investigation by the Biden administration — appears to be wondering why Epstein, who reportedly hung himself in lock-up after his arrest — and Ghislaine are the only ones being punished since there appear to be many others who were involved in their ‘activities,’ according to various reports.

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.”

The Tesla and SpaceX founder responded:  “Where is their ‘client’ list? Shouldn’t at least one of them go down?”

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Photo of Carmine Sabia Carmine SabiaMay 14, 2022