Tesla CEO Elon Musk attends the Tesla Shanghai Gigafactory groundbreaking ceremony in Shanghai, China January 7, 2019. REUTERS/Aly Song
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May 14 (Reuters) – Elon Musk on Saturday tweeted that Twitter Inc’s (TWTR.N) legal team accused him of violating a nondisclosure agreement by revealing that the sample size for the social media platform’s checks on automated users was 100.
“Twitter legal just called to complain that I violated their NDA by revealing the bot check sample size is 100!” tweeted Musk, chief executive of electric car maker Tesla Inc (TSLA.O).
Musk on Friday tweeted that his $44-billion cash deal to take the company private was “temporarily on hold” while he awaited data on the proportion of its fake accounts. read more
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He said his team would test “a random sample of 100 followers” on Twitter to identify the bots. His response to a question prompted Twitter’s accusation.
When a user asked Musk to “elaborate on process of filtering bot accounts,” he replied: “I picked 100 as the sample size number, because that is what Twitter uses to calculate <5% fake/spam/duplicate.”
Musk tweeted during the early hours of Sunday that he is yet to see “any” analysis that shows that the social media company has fake accounts less than 5%.
He later said that “There is some chance it might be over 90% of daily active users.”
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Reporting by Jaiveer Singh Shekhawat and Rachna Dhanrajani in Bengaluru; Editing by Cynthia Osterman, Richard Chang and David Evans
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
