The deal between Elon Musk and Twitter is not going so well. In fact, are looking at some major stumbling blocks.

Many news agencies are reporting that Elon is putting the deal on hold over the reported inflation of accounts that are nothing more than bots.

Musk claims that as much as 5% of the subscriber base are nothing more than bots. This is a significant part of the user base, estimated to be around 250 million. It is something that could affect the profitability of the company.

Big news was made a few weeks ago with the proposal of takeover by Musk. We now have another wrinkle after the Board approved Musk's offer. It still has to go through the shareholders, which is not expected to be a problem.

Negotiation Tactic?

Perhaps Musk is using this as a negotiation tactic. After Musk submitted his offer, the Board went seeking others, to find no takers. This means that it is evident there are not other players in the market for Twitter.

This makes sense since the company, from a stock price perspective, did nothing the last decade. Thus, shareholders had almost no return over a decade.

It is one of the reasons why people expect the offer to be accepted. The premium Musk is paying will allow the shareholders to get out with a profit.

That said, $44 billion is still a lot of money. By pointing out the userbase is not what is proclaimed, Musk is asserting the potential revenues in the future could be affected. Of course, Twitter is a public company so the financial statements are open for anyone to see.

If the offer is reduced by the same 5%, it would save Musk and his backers $2.2 billion, not an insignificant sum.

A Free Speech Advocate

The buyout of Twitter surprised many considering Musk has so much on his plate. Also, Twitter does not exactly fit into the Musk family of companies. Nevertheless, the world's richest person has his eyes set on taking Twitter private.

Musk claimed that his consideration regarding the online social media company was to preserve free speech. His stated that he feels this is vital to have an effective democracy. Of course, $44 billion is lot of money to pick up a cause.

It makes one wonder if he could start his own social media platform for less money. The question is whether he would get the same financing as he does for a public company. Backers can look at Twitter's track record as opposed to supporting a total start up.

Not Web 3.0

Since Elon is such a supporter of DOGE, many feel that he will implement that into the platform. That might be the case. However, that does not mean that it is Web 3.0.

In fact, without decentralized data and the ability to own one's account, something cannot be considered anything but another iteration of Web 2.0. Simply adding a token in doesn't make much of a difference.

One thing that did take place is Musk did bring a great deal more attention to the fact that Twitter and other social media platforms are abusive in their practices. This is bringing the discussion about free speech and the ability to keep one's data into the forefront.

Of course, for those of us on Hive, we see this as an opportunity. By building applications from the ground up, we can incorporate the values of Web 3.0 while also providing alternatives to what is taking place. Plus, with an ecosystem that is designed to prevent spam, the botting might be reduced some since there is a cost the users effectively have to pay. On Hive, of course, it is resource credits which can add up if you want to do a lot of spamming.

Will Elon back out of the Twitter deal? Only time will tell on that one. What we can predict is that he will not create a Web 3.0 platform so there is still plenty of work for us to do.

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