Elon Musk’s Fight About Twitter Bots Is Really a Fight Over Deal Price

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Tesla

CEO Elon Musk said poor data on fake

Twitter

accounts is the reason why he may drop his $44 billion bid for the social-media company. There are several more compelling reasons than that.

For a start, Musk’s offer is at $54.20 a share, and the stock traded below $40 on Monday. Shares might have been even lower if the deal wasn’t still on the table, or if Twitter didn’t seem so determined to force the transaction to a close.

Musk waived his rights to due diligence before signing up to the deal, a decision he may now regret having had more time to get into the details.

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The issue of bot accounts may have implications for advertising revenue. But they are a problem that Musk is surely in a great position to solve if he buys the company. It isn’t obvious what difference it makes if the starting point is that bots account for less than 5% of users, as Twitter claims, or at…