As per an attendee at a private conference where Elon Musk was speaking on Monday, Musk suggested that a lower price for Twitter Inc could be reasonable as he and CEO Parag Agrawal argued over the company’s estimates of spam accounts, reported Reuters.

Twitter shares fell further in late afternoon trade following Musk’s remarks, which were made at a press-only meeting in Miami.

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Shares fell more than 8% to settle at $37.39, a level lower than the day before Musk revealed his Twitter stake in early April, casting doubt on Musk’s ability to complete his $44 billion acquisition of the firm at the agreed-upon price.

Earlier on Monday, Agrawal tweeted that internal estimates of spam accounts on the social media platform for the last four quarters were “well under 5%,” in response to Musk’s criticism of the company’s treatment of false accounts.

He noted that Twitter’s estimate, which has remained constant since 2013, could not be replicated outside due to the necessity to use both public and private information to evaluate if an account is spam.

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Musk, who announced on Friday that the acquisition was “temporarily on hold” pending information on spam accounts, responded with a poop emoji to Agrawal’s justification of the company’s procedures.

“So how do advertisers know what they’re getting for their money? This is fundamental to the financial health of Twitter,” Musk wrote.

According to tweets from attendance, Musk told the conference in Miami shortly after his tweets that he suspects bots – or automated accounts – make up approximately 20% to 25% of users.

Also read: Twitter CEO confident of low spam user count after Elon Musk put deal ‘on hold’

Musk has committed reforms to Twitter’s content moderation policies, calling actions such as the company’s ban of former President Donald Trump “overly aggressive” and promising to crack down on “spam bots” on the platform. 

Musk has asked for random Twitter user tests to identify bots, saying he has yet to see “any” data that proves spam accounts make up less than 5% of the user base.

Musk stated on Sunday that “there is some chance it might be over 90% of daily active users.”

According to independent analysts, anything from 9% to 15% of the millions of Twitter profiles are bots.

Twitter does not yet require users to register with their real names and explicitly allows automated, parody, and pseudonymous profiles.

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It does prohibit impersonation and spam, and it penalises accounts whose objective is to “deceive or manipulate others” by participating in frauds, organising abuse operations, or artificially boosting engagement.

Musk’s remarks to a private audience may heighten concerns about his market-moving information dumps.

Musk, famed for his honest Twitter rants, has a long history of clashes with the Securities and Exchange Commission; most recently, a U.S. judge chastised him for attempting to avoid an SEC settlement requiring control of his Tesla tweets.