Following Twitter stock tumbling last week after Elon Musk put his purchase of the platform on hold to investigate how many "fake accounts" are active, the Tesla owner is now considering lowering his offer. .On Friday, Musk tweeted he was suspending his purchase of Twitter temporarily and said he intended to investigate claims from the company indicating spam and fake accounts "represent less than 5% of users." .SparkToro, a Washington-based audience research tech company, along with Followerwonk, a Twitter analytics tool, completed a "rigorous, joint analysis" of public Twitter accounts within the last 90 days. .Results of the analysis show that 19.42% of Twitter's accounts would "fit the conservative definition of fake or spam accounts." That is nearly four times Twitter's claim from its Q4 2021 estimates. . Percent of Twitter accounts likely to be fake or spam - dataset comparing May 13 - 15, 2022Percent of Twitter accounts likely to be fake or spam - dataset comparing May 13 - 15, 2022 .On Monday, Musk spoke at the All-In Summit tech conference in Miami, Florida, and said the number of bots is "as unknowable as the human soul, basically," reported HuffPost. .During an online-interview at the summit, Musk explained Twitter claims more than 95% of comments on posts are from "real, unique humans" on a daily basis. ."Does anyone have that experience?" he asked, which caused the audience to erupt in laughter. .Musk's estimates pegged spam accounts at 20% of all Twitter accounts, landing very close to the joint analysis results, but also said bots could potentially make up "80% or 90%" of accounts. .While answering a question, Musk indicated lowering his purchase offer wouldn't be "out of the question." ."The more questions I ask, the more my concerns grow," said Musk. ."At the end of the day, it has to be fixable." .He said he is still waiting for answers, "And Twitter is refusing to tell us." ."My offer was based on Twitter's SEC filings being accurate," said Musk in a Tuesday tweet. ."Yesterday, Twitter's CEO publicly refused to show proof of <5%. This deal cannot move forward until he does." .Musk's original offer to Twitter was $44 billion — or $54.20 per share, but with his recent slags towards the social media platform, the stock has dropped in value. On Monday, Twitter stock dropped as low as $37.39 a share, nearly a 30% drop from Musk's original offer.
