Elon Musk said that Twitter’s legal team informed him that releasing the company’s sample size to review fake accounts violated the terms of his non-disclosure agreement.
On April 25, Twitter announced a deal to sell the firm to Tesla founder Elon Musk. Musk, however, stated on Friday that his $44 billion takeover is “temporarily on hold” while he waits for clarification on the number of spam accounts.
Musk claimed in a tweet on Saturday that his team would run its own random sample of 100 Twitter accounts, disclosing that he chose 100 random accounts to measure the number of spam accounts since “that is what Twitter uses to determine 5% fake/spam/duplicate” accounts.
The disclosure of Twitter’s sample size appears to have landed Musk in serious trouble, as he stated on Saturday that disclosing this information meant he had “violated” his nondisclosure agreement, according to Twitter’s legal team.
Musk has since aimed at Twitter’s algorithm, telling users that they are “being manipulated” and warning of “potential bugs” in its programming.
Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was drawn to the statement. “It was just designed to save you time while you were away from [the] app for a while,” Dorsey explained to Musk. “Pull to refresh also returns to reverse chron.”
Dorsey then responded to someone who claimed that Twitter’s algorithmic feed was “absolutely” designed to manipulate people.
“No, it wasn’t designed to manipulate,” Dorsey said. “It was designed to catch you up and work off what you engage with. That can def have unintended consequences tho.”
Musk later appeared to backtrack his statement. “I’m not suggesting malice in the algorithm, but rather that it’s trying to guess what you may want to read and, in doing so, inadvertently manipulate/amplify your viewpoints without you realising it,” the billionaire added.
It isn’t the first time Musk’s tweets have gotten him into trouble. In 2018, his “funding secured” tweet garnered the attention of the US Securities and Exchange Commission, which resulted in a $40 million settlement, which he is now attempting to overturn.