Twitter has reportedly agreed to provide Tesla CEO Elon Musk with access to its internal data after the billionaire threatened to pull out of a deal to acquire the company due to a lack of transparency around bots on the platform.
The Washington Examiner reports that Twitter has agreed to provide Tesla CEO Elon Musk with access to its internal data after the billionaire raised concerns about the number of fake or bot accounts on the platform. Now Musk will reportedly be granted access to Twitter’s “firehose” of internal data as early as this week.
This data was reportedly previously available to two other companies that paid for access to a database containing a real-time record of tweets, location data, and private information but the names of these companies were not made public.
Musk’s recent SEC filing stated: “Musk believes the company is actively resisting and thwarting his information rights (and the company’s corresponding obligations) under the merger agreement. This is a clear material breach of Twitter’s obligations under the merger agreement, and Mr. Musk reserves all rights resulting therefrom, including his right not to consummate the transaction and his right to terminate the merger agreement.”
Twitter denied the allegations, saying in response to the SEC filing: “Twitter has and will continue to cooperatively share information with Mr. Musk to consummate the transaction in accordance with the terms of the merger agreement. We believe this agreement is in the best interest of all shareholders. We intend to close the transaction and enforce the merger agreement at the agreed price and terms.”
On May 13 Musk stated that his purchase of Twitter was “temporarily on hold” due to the company’s low estimate that five percent of its platform consisted of bots. Musk claimed that the platforms’ user base consists of at least 20 percent bots or spam accounts.
Read more at the Washington Examiner here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address lucasnolan@protonmail.com