Elon Musk Challenges Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal to Public Debate Over Bots

Twitter on Friday announced its second quarter results, showing an unexpected dip in revenue and a net loss of $270 million.

(Photo: The Quint)

Elon Musk on Saturday, 6 August, challenged Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal to a public debate about the percentage of bots on the platform.

"Let him prove to the public that Twitter has less than 5 percent fake or spam daily users!" Musk, who backed out of a deal to acquire Twitter over this issue, posted.

Musk suggested that If Twitter provides their method of sampling 100 accounts and how they’re confirmed to be real, "the deal should proceed on original terms."

Trial on 17 October

Twitter sued Tesla CEO Elon Musk on 12 July for reneging on his $44 billion deal to acquire the microblogging platform and asked a court in US' Delaware to order him to go ahead with the merger at the agreed price.

Musk subsequently filed a countersuit claiming that he was tricked into signing the agreement with false claims and misrepresentations. Twitter has dismissed this claim.

Delaware Court of Chancery Chancellor Kathleen McCormick ordered a five-day trial starting 17 October to determine if the Tesla CEO can walk away from the multi-billion dollar deal.

Twitter appears to have the upper hand, going into this trial.

The judge presiding over the case, Kathaleen McCormick, has a record of siding with the sellers and has previously forced a buyer to follow through with their acquisition in a similar case.