Twitter stock jumped as much as 3% on Wednesday after a report said the company will give Elon Musk access to a trove of data.The “firehose” of data given to Musk could disprove the billionaire’s theory that about 20% of Twitter accounts are bots.Investors see the development as Twitter inching closer to completing Musk’s $44 billion takeover. Loading Something is loading.
Twitter stock jumped as much as 3% on Wednesday, erasing early morning losses after The Washington Post reported that the social media company plans to give Elon Musk a trove of data.
Twitter will offer Musk access to a “firehose” of data that should satisfy his demand to investigate how much of the social media platform’s accounts are bots before completing his $44 billion buyout. Twitter has previously estimated that number to be around 5%, but Musk thinks the actual number is about 20%.
The board will let Musk access a massive data stream that’s comprised of more than 500 million daily tweets, according to the report. The handover of data could happen as soon as this week, and investors are taking it as a sign that Twitter is inching closer to sealing the acquisition deal.
Twitter already offers the data stream to about two dozen companies who pay for access, which suggests that the company may have confidence that Musk will not find anything that conflicts with its own findings regarding the number of spam accounts.
The reported move by Twitter comes just two days after Musk sent a letter to the company accusing Twitter of breaching their merger agreement by “actively resisting” requests for information about spam and fake accounts. Some argue that Musk put himself in this scenario by agreeing to waive his due diligence right when buying the company.
Last month, Musk said he was putting the deal “on hold” as he gets to the bottom as to how many Twitter accounts are real and how many are fake. But Musk’s “on hold” tweet also came as the broader stock market fell, meaning that Musk could have likely bought Twitter for a lower price if he had waited longer. Additionally, Musk is committing more than $30 billion of his own wealth to the Twitter deal, much of which is tied up in Tesla stock.
If Tesla stock continues to move lower, as it has over the past month, it could put further pressure on Musk’s financial flexibility in terms of completing the deal.
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