Doubts cast over Elon Musk’s Twitter bot claims

On Aug 19, 2022

Filings made by Elon Musk’s legal team in his battle with Twitter have been questioned by leading bot researchers.

Botometer – an online tool that tracks spam and fake accounts – was used by Musk in a countersuit against Twitter.

Using the tool, Mr Musk’s team estimated that 33% of “visible accounts” on the social media platform were “false or spam accounts”.

However, Botometer creator and maintainer, Kaicheng Yang, said the figure “doesn’t mean anything”.

Yang questioned the methodology used by Mr Musk’s team, and said they had not approached him before using the tool.

Musk is currently in dispute with Twitter, after trying to pull out of a deal to purchase the company for $44bn (£36.6bn).

A court case is due in October in Delaware, where a judge will rule on whether Mr Musk will have to buy it.

In July, Musk said he no longer wished to purchase the company, as he could not verify how many humans were on the platform.