Tech mogul extraordinaire Elon Musk has issued a challenge to Twitter's chief executive Parag Agrawal as the legal battle between the SpaceX founder and the social media giant ekes itself out.
Previously, Musk declared his intention to cancel the $44Bln deal to buy Twitter, citing concerns over the number of fake accounts on the social media platform.
When Twitter launched a lawsuit against Musk for trying to pull out of the agreement, insisting that he was obliged to go through with the deal, he countersued Twitter, claiming that the company committed fraud and breach of contract during the acquisition deal.
Specifically, Musk’s countersuit alleges that Twitter misrepresented the number of fake accounts (bots) included in the data regarding the number of monetizable daily active users (mDAU) on the social media platform.
“I hereby challenge @paraga to a public debate about the Twitter bot percentage,” Musk tweeted this week, referring to Agrawal by the latter’s Twitter handle. “Let him prove to the public that Twitter has <5 percent fake or spam daily users!”
Just like many of his previous tweets, Musk’s posts elicited a largely amused reaction from his social media following, with netizens cheering him on or even jokingly suggesting a “trial by combat”.
And at least one person predicted that there is “less than 1 percent chance” that Agrawal will agree to such a debate.