Elon Musk Claims 90% of Comments on His Twitter Account Are Bots

Elon Musk, on Tuesday, claimed that a very sizable chunk of comments on his tweets is bots and spam replies. According to the outspoken Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) CEO, 90% of the comments on his Twitter account are not generated by real persons.

Musk made this assertion while also sharing a screenshot of replies by the fake Twitter account of Binance’s Changpeng Zhao. The screenshot of the alleged fake account by the crypto exchange’s founder and CEO displays a sequence of seemingly arbitrary messages. The real account belonging to Zhao buttressed Musk’s complaint in a tweet reply stating that only “his” is authentic.

In response to the claim, a follower asked Musk if he felt the same way about the number of “likes”. The question to Musk read, “Do you think the number of likes you get has a similar proportion of bots vs humans at 90%?”

Elon Musk & Twitter Contention over Bots & Spam Accounts

Throughout much of the year so far, Musk has locked horns with Twitter over the issue of bots and spam accounts. Earlier this month, he criticized the social media giant’s CEO Parag Agrawal following allegations by a top cybersecurity personnel. According to this cybersecurity expert, as many as eight out of ten Twitter accounts are fake. It is also this subject matter of bogus Twitter accounts that compelled Musk to pull the plug on his $44 billion acquisition deal two months back.

As it stands, the billionaire businessman and the popular microblogging platform are currently tussling out this contentious issue in court. Twitter is trying to force Musk to honor the original terms of the acquisition deal. Meanwhile, the Tesla CEO claims that the social media company is withholding critical information on bots from his team. Musk further alleges that Twitter refused to cooperate by providing this critical information on spam accounts even when asked. In his assessment, the total proportion of spam accounts to genuine ones on Twitter is 20%. This number is also four times as high as the social media giant claims. Furthermore, Musk opines that it could be even higher.

Twitter Bot Claims

Global Head of Intelligence at cybersecurity company F5, Dan Woods, also recently weighed in on Twitter bot claims. According to Woods’ estimations, more than 80% of all Twitter accounts are likely bots. This is also a far cry from the relatively paltry 5% that the social media company claims to be the case. Although the F5 Global Head of Intelligence’s opinion seems to be in line with Musk’s assessment, Woods also seemed to suggest there is more. According to the former CIA and FBI cybersecurity specialist, both Musk and Twitter underestimate the bot problem.

Musk and Twitter will go to trial next month, after the Tesla CEO asked the court to delay the trial by at least a month. This came about following recent allegations made by whistle-blower Peiter Zatko.

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Tolu is a cryptocurrency and blockchain enthusiast based in Lagos. He likes to demystify crypto stories to the bare basics so that anyone anywhere can understand without too much background knowledge.
When he’s not neck-deep in crypto stories, Tolu enjoys music, loves to sing and is an avid movie lover.