Elon Threatens To Back Out Of Twitter Deal, Citing Twitter's Lack Of Disclosure Regarding 'Bots'

Elon Musk, though an apparent fan of artificial intelligence, is drawing the line at the supposed bots infesting his high-profile purchase of Twitter.

The billionaire recently sent a letter to Twitter claiming he was within his rights to "terminate" his agreement to purchase the social media website for $44 billion if Twitter did not provide him with all the data the site has on its percentage of spam-bot accounts.

"Musk believes Twitter is transparently refusing to comply with its obligations under the merger agreement," the letter stated, "which is causing further suspicion that the company is withholding the requested data." He claims that 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.”

Musk has publically, though not formally, griped about this issue before, airing his grievances with Twitter's supposed lack of transparency regarding bots on the website itself. He then claimed the deal was "on hold" until Twitter verified that less than 5 percent of accounts using Twitter were "bots."

In response, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal posted a lengthy thread discussing bots on the platform, saying they are sophisticated and sometimes difficult to detect, as they usually are created through a mix of human and automated work. Nevertheless, according to Agrawal, Twitter has determined that less than 5 percent of active accounts on Twitter are spam bots every quarter.

Furthermore, Agrawal asserted that externally performed analyses of Twitter's spam bot population will be inaccurate, as they lack the private information Twitter has and cannot release.

"Unfortunately, we don’t believe that this specific estimation can be performed externally, given the critical need to use both public and private information," he said.

Twitter has not yet responded to Elon Musk's latest salvo, but experts and laymen alike saw Musk's threat and his supposed focus on the bot issue as a signal that he wants out of his expensive purchase and is attempting to make a proverbial mountain out of a molehill in order to reverse course, perhaps without paying the $1 billion kill fee written into the agreement.

"He is trying to walk away from the Twitter deal, this is the first shot across the bow," Wedbush analyst Dan Ives told Reuters.

Twitter users who have watched as both Tesla and Twitter stocks have tanked following Musk's $54.20-per-share purchase of Twitter were amused at the latest chapter in what has become something of a circus.

We're certainly a ways away from finding out the ultimate fate of Musk's Twitter purchase, but for the betting folks among us, it seems that currently, the safe money may be on "not gonna happen."