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Watch: Twitter claims bots are less than 5%, says Elon Musk. Cue the laughter

Elon Musk said: “Currently I am being told that there is no way to know the number of bots on Twitter, its unknowable, it’s like the human soul basically.”

May 18, 2022 / 12:46 PM IST
Elon Musk has temporarily put on hold his deal to buy Twitter (Illustration: News18)

Elon Musk has temporarily put on hold his deal to buy Twitter (Illustration: News18)

Tech billionaire Elon Musk has a few things to say about Twitter. Ever since he put the deal of acquiring the social media giant on hold, the Tesla CEO has made several comments on why the deal is under negotiation and his main point of contention has been the number of bots on the site.

Speaking virtually at the “All-in Podcast”, Musk, 50, answering to a question from the host on “what’s new in his life”, said he was “debating the number of bots on Twitter”.

“Currently I am being told that there is no way to know the number of bots on Twitter, its unknowable, it’s like the human soul basically,” Musk said as the panel at the podcast broke out into peals of laughter.

Getting serious for a moment, Musk then said: “The number of real unique humans that you see making comments on a daily basis on Twitter is above 95 per cent, that is what they (Twitter) are claiming. Does anyone have that experience?” And cue the laughter again.


See the video here:


Musk and the panel laughed heartily before going on with the Twitter discussion for a while.

Soon after came a new poll from the SpaceX boss for his 93.7 million followers.


“Twitter claims that >95% of daily active users are real, unique humans. Does anyone have that experience?” read the poll and the options were two laughing emoticons and “Who me?” with a robot emoji.


The poll already has 1,318,157 votes and has 12 hours more to go.

The latest remarks from Musk have been casting doubt on the $44 billion Twitter deal. The world’s richest man declared some days back that the deal was "temporarily on hold" but that he's "still committed to acquisition”. He just needs more clarity on the bots problem.

Stella Dey
first published: May 18, 2022 10:59 am