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The confusion surrounding Elon Musk’s takeover bid for Twitter Inc. has delivered millions in paper profits to short sellers betting that the world’s richest person won’t follow through on his purchase of the social media platform. Twitter’s 9.7% drop in Friday’s trading delivered a $138.8 million boost in mark-to-market profits for short sellers, according to S3 Partners data, bringing potential returns for the month to $264.4 million. Musk sent a tweet on Friday saying that his $44 billion was “temporarily on hold” before quickly maintaining that he is “still committed” to the deal. The pair of messages sent Twitter shares into a tailspin with the gap between his $54.20 offer price and the stock’s trading widening to the largest since it was struck. BloombergRoughly 1.32 million shares, worth $60 million, were shorted over the last week as the spread started to widen, according to Ihor Dusaniwsky, S3 Partners’ managing director of predictive analytics, who called the base of short sellers “reinvigorated.” However, on the whole, Twitter shorts are still down for the year, losing roughly $69 million, he said by email. Roughly 5% of Twitter shares available for trading are currently sold short, worth about $1.43 billion, the firm’s data…

Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal acknowledged the possibility that Elon Musk’s deal to purchase the company could fall through in a series of tweets this afternoon that sought to explain why he’s shaking up Twitter’s leadership. Agrawal said that he’s still “accountable for leading and operating” Twitter for the time being and that his recent changes are meant to “build a stronger Twitter” and help manage costs. “While I expect the deal to close, we need to be prepared for all scenarios and always do what’s right for Twitter,” Agrawal said. His remarks come after Musk tweeted this morning that his $44 billion purchase of Twitter is “temporarily on hold” over concerns about spam and fake accounts. While it is entirely unclear whether Musk can actually pause the deal — Matt Levine at Bloomberg says putting a deal on hold “is not a thing” — the remarks were still enough to send Twitter’s stock plummeting around 10 percent today, scaring off investors over the concern that the agreement could fall through. While I expect the deal to close, we need to be prepared for all scenarios and always do what’s right for Twitter. I’m accountable for leading and operating Twitter, and…

Elon Musk on Friday said his $44 billion deal to buy Twitter is on hold temporarily as he waits for details confirming spam or fake accounts on the micro-blogging site are less than 5% of users. Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of usershttps://t.co/Y2t0QMuuyn— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 13, 2022 Twitter estimated that false or spam accounts represented fewer than 5% of its monetizable daily active users during the first quarter. The social media company had 229 million users who were served advertising in the first quarter. Shares of the social media company fell 20% in premarket trading. Musk, the world's richest man and the chief executive of Tesla Inc, had said that one of his priorities would be to remove "spam bots" from the platform. Fighting fake accounts has been a cornerstone of Musk’s bid to reform Twitter. In a statement announcing his deal to buy Twitter last month, he revealed he wanted to defeat spam bots, authenticate all humans and make its algorithms open source. Musk has also said he’d like to make the platform a bastion of free speech, taking the guardrails off of content…

Elon Musk said that his $44 billion deal to acquire Twitter has been put on hold. The billionaire Tesla chief cited pending details to support the microblogging site’s claim that spam or fake accounts were less than 5 per cent of its total user base. What has Musk said? In a tweet Friday, Musk said: “Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users”. He shared a link in his tweet to a May 2 Reuters story titled ‘Twitter estimates spam, fake accounts comprise less than 5% of users -filing’. Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of usershttps://t.co/Y2t0QMuuyn — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 13, 2022 Why has Musk put the Twitter deal on hold? The world’s richest man on prior occasions has said that removing “spam bots” from Twitter will be one of his top priorities following the completion of the acquisition. What is Twitter’s claim on spam users? Earlier this month, the microblogging platform had claimed in a regulatory filing that false or spam accounts represented fewer than 5 per cent of its monetisable daily active…

When former City Council Speaker Corey Johnson’s official Twitter account abruptly vanished in January, social media observers and good-government watchdogs were left wondering if he had scrubbed four years of pithy political posts to make way for a career as a lobbyist.Turns out Johnson’s work account, @NYCSpeakerCoJo, was deactivated in mid-January by his replacement, Council Speaker Adrienne Adams (D-Queens).The account was removed “for the avoidance of confusion,” according to a spokesperson for Adams. “The former Speaker’s government Twitter account was archived and deactivated, since his term had expired and he was no longer Speaker — plainly speaking, the content remains available for public access but the dormant account is just no longer active,” the spokesperson, Mandela Jones, said.“The City Council follows City and State record retention requirements, and these remain accessible to the public in accordance with the law.” Johnson, who now runs a government-relations lobbying firm, declined to comment, but said he had not been aware the account had been deleted until THE CITY reached out. The move was not liked by government transparency groups and other local politicians, who are now trying to codify the inclusion officials’ websites and social media presence in their public archives.A full archive of the account…

Whether it's because a move Twitter itself made that you're not fond of, a decision to move to another platform instead, or you've just had enough of social media as a whole, there are plenty of reasons why you'd want to leave Twitter. Unlike most sites that we frequent on the web, leaving Twitter isn't as simple as signing off for the final time and never going back. That's because of the massive amounts of data sites like this collect about us while we're using them. To ensure that Twitter won't continue exploiting your data after you've gone, you need to take the proper steps to fully delete your account and all of the data tied to it on your way out. In this guide, we'll explain how to do just that, as well as how to take all of your valuable data with you. Follow along with the steps here and you'll be done with Twitter. Or, if you change your mind and decide you just can't quit the microblogging service, we'll tell you how to undo the process as well. Step 1: Deactivating third-party services Michael Gariffo--Twitter Unlike some other sites that let you immediately delete your information and close down…

Elon Musk said Tuesday that he would end Twitter's permanent ban of former President Donald Tump after his purchase of the social media platform is complete. Twitter implemented the ban days after the Jan. 6 attack "due to the risk of further incitement of violence" by Trump.“I do think that it was not correct to ban Donald Trump,” Musk, co-founder and CEO of Tesla, told The Financial Times, adding: “I would reverse the permanent ban."“Banning Trump from Twitter didn’t end Trump’s voice,” he continued. “It will amplify it among the right. This is why it’s morally wrong and flat up stupid.”Musk, who is expected to serve as temporary CEO of Twitter once his $44 billion bid goes through, said the company should delete or make "invisible" tweets that are "wrong" and "bad." He said he supports temporary suspensions but "not a permanent ban."As he’s been prone to do, Musk is couching Twitter’s moderation policies in the conservative movement’s terms. While it’s convenient for Musk — a prominent Twitter troll himself — to claim the company's ban was censorship designed to “end” Trump’s voice and stop tweets that were simply “bad,” that’s not actually true. The ban, according to Twitter, sought to…

Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey says he agrees with Elon Musk that former President Trump should have his Twitter account reinstated.Why it matters: Dorsey was CEO of Twitter when the ban was put in place.Dorsey called the ban a mistaken "business decision," and reiterated Musk's belief that permanent bans are inappropriate in cases outside of illegal activity or spam.The statements give Musk support to continue dismantling Twitter's content moderation efforts after he buys the company, which may alter the Twitter experience and advertiser appeal.What he's saying: "I do agree," Dorsey tweeted, in response to a tweet from Axios' Dan Primack. "There are exceptions (CSE, illegal behaviour, spam or network manipulation, etc.), but generally permanent bans are a failure of ours and don't work."Dorsey then linked to some of his earlier tweets from when the ban was first announced, and then added in a subsequent reply:"It was a business decision, it shouldn't have been. and we should always revisit our decisions and evolve as necessary. I stated in that thread and still believe that permanent bans of individuals are directionally wrong."Big picture: Dorsey has not yet committed to participate in Musk's buyout of Twitter by rolling over his shares, although Musk did…

“We believe that if Elon Musk’s bid for Twitter disappeared tomorrow, Twitter’s equity would fall by 50 per cent from current levels. Consequently, we see a significant risk that the deal gets repriced lower.”Twitter released its March-quarter results three days after the board accepted Mr Musk’s offer, and at the time, also revealed that it had overstated the number of users in the December quarter, a factor that would likely weigh on the company’s market value.The March-quarter result revealed weaker than expected revenue growth. Hindenburg said the presence of bot and spam accounts may flatter the statistics that track activity across the platform.Twitter shares are up 11 per cent this year while the Nasdaq Composite index has shed a quarter of its value. The social media company’s shares shot 27 per cent higher on the day Mr Musk unveiled his stake, but have since ebbed 4 per cent lower to a closing price on Monday of $US47.96.That price is below the $US54.20 implied in the Tesla founder's deal, indicating investor unease.Hindenburg’s successful short bets in the past have included Nikola, the electric vehicle maker, which has fallen sharply in value over the past 18 months after initially soaring through the…

All-Star guard Ja Morant won’t be on the court when the Grizzlies take the floor against the Warriors on Monday night, but his injury status didn’t prevent him from hopping on Twitter before tip-off. Shortly before Game 4 of the Western Conference playoff series got underway, Morant took to social media to send out an optimistic message to his followers. “stand tall. stay solid. - God wouldn’t put something hard in your life if he thought you weren’t strong enough to get thru it,” he wrote.Morant’s tweet came just after Grizzlies coach Taylor Jenkins ruled out his starting point guard from Monday’s game with a right knee injury. Jenkins said that Morant will continue to be evaluated in the coming days and that the team’s doctors will continue to work on the All-Star’s knee. Scroll to ContinueMorant suffered the injury late in Memphis’s 142–112 loss to Golden State in Saturday’s Game 3. He was then seen limping around the Chase Center postgame, though no official diagnosis was provided by the Grizzlies at the time. Memphis had listed him as doubtful to play prior to Jenkins’s announcement on Monday evening.The injury halts an impressive stretch of playoff performances for the NBA’s 2021–22 Most Improved…