Doubt cast over Twitter bot claims of Elon Musk

Leading bot researchers questioned the filing made by Elon Musk's legal team in his battle against Twitter.

Botometer is an online tool that tracks fake and spam accounts. Elon Musk used it in a countersuit against Twitter. Using botometer, Elon Musk's team estimated that 33% of visible accounts on the Twitter platform were spam or fake accounts. However, Botometer's maintainer and creator, Kaicheng Yang, said the figure "doesn't mean anything." Mr. Yang said Mr. Musk's team did not approach him before using the tool and questioned their methodology.

Mr. Musk is currently in dispute with Twitter after trying to pull out a deal to purchase the company for $44bn. In July, Tesla Boss said he no longer wished to buy the company as he could not verify how many humans were there on the social media platform. A court case is due in October in Delaware, where a judge will rule on whether Elon Musk will have to buy it or not.

Mr. Musk's countersuit was made public on 5th August. He claimed one-third of visible Twitter accounts assessed by his team were fake. Using that figure, the team estimated that a minimum of 10% of daily active users are bots. However, Twitter estimates that fewer than 5% of its daily active users are bot accounts.