Twitter’s CEO responded after billionaire Elon Musk said his $44 billion offer to buy the platform was “on hold” until he sought more information regarding fraudulent accounts.

CEO Parag Agrawal expressed “confidence” in the company’s claims that less than 5% of users are spam.

According to him, the corporation suspends over 500,000 suspicious accounts per day.

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Analysts believe Musk may be looking for ways to renegotiate the deal’s pricing or walk away.

Agrawal explained that the corporation used public and private data to decide which accounts were legitimate, checking random samples every few months. According to him, the margins of error are substantially within its estimate of spam accounts comprising less than 5% of daily users.

He stated that the business provided Musk with an “overview” of their methodology last week.

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“We… look forward to continuing the conversation with him, and all of you,” he said.

Musk announced on Friday that he had placed the deal on hold for “supporting (the) calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users.”

Later, he said he was “still committed to [the] acquisition,” prompting Twitter board chairman Bret Taylor to remark, “We are, too.”

However, the stock market, which has witnessed weeks of turbulence strip billions of dollars off the value of several companies, remains sceptical that the merger will be completed as planned.

Also read: Elon Musk shows users how not to be ‘manipulated’ by Twitter algorithm

The price of a Twitter share has dropped below $38, falling further on Monday following Agrawal’s comments.

That is less than the stock price before Musk declared his interest in the company and significantly less than the $54.20 per share offer.

The takeover was approved by Twitter’s board of directors last month, but the transaction was not expected to be finalised for months.

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Agrawal admitted the risk of the deal falling through in a series of tweets last week explaining his intention to dismiss top executives.

“While I expect the deal to close, we need to be prepared for all scenarios and always do what’s right for Twitter,” he wrote.