Elon Musk will directly answer questions from Twitter employees during all-hands meeting this week

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Elon Musk will speak to Twitter employees this week for the first time since launching his $44 billion bid for the company in April, Twitter Chief Executive Parag Agrawal told staff on Monday. 

The company’s virtual all-hands meeting is scheduled for Thursday, and Musk will take questions directly from Twitter employees, Insider reported. 

It comes after Twitter said last week that it anticipated a shareholder vote on the sale by early August. 

Twitter confirmed that Musk would attend the company all-hands meeting this week. Twitter’s chief marketing officer and head of people Leslie Berland will moderate the call. 

Earlier this month, Musk warned Twitter that he might walk away from his deal to acquire Twitter if it fails to provide data on spam and fake accounts that he has been seeking. 

Back in April, during an all-hands meeting with employees, Agrawal was seen quelling employee anger after workers demanded answers to how managers planned to handle an anticipated mass exodus prompted by Musk. 

Elon Musk

Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal

Elon Musk (left) will speak to Twitter staff this week for the first time since launching his $44 billion bid in April, Twitter Chief Executive Parag Agrawal (right) told staff 

Twitter's chief marketing officer and head of people Leslie Berland will moderate the call

Twitter’s chief marketing officer and head of people Leslie Berland will moderate the call

Last week, Twitter anticipated holding a shareholder vote on its $44 billion sale to Musk as soon as early August, top executives told employees.

Musk’s lawyers warned Twitter that he might walk away from the acquisition if the company fails to provide the data he seeks on spam and fake accounts.

But the social media firm appears to be intent on executing the sale – even promising to give Musk direct access to its “firehose” of real-time data in order to determine himself the number of ‘bots’ on the platform.

A Twitter spokesperson referred DailyMail.com to an earlier company statement saying that the company plans to fully enforce the terms of the April 25 contract Musk signed to buy the company at $54.20 per share.

‘We believe this agreement is in the best interest of all shareholders. We intend to close the transaction and enforce the merger agreement at the agreed price and terms,’ the statement said. 

Last week, Twitter anticipated holding a shareholder vote on its $44 billion sale to Musk as soon as early August, top executives told employees

Last week, Twitter anticipated holding a shareholder vote on its $44 billion sale to Musk as soon as early August, top executives told employees

GlobalData's analysis relied on a statistical model that took into account a number of variables (above) to determine the proportion of spam accounts on Twitter

GlobalData’s analysis relied on a statistical model that took into account a number of variables (above) to determine the proportion of spam accounts on Twitter

Despite Musk’s threats to walk away, Twitter has the option of taking him to court if he refuses to follow through on his agreement to buy the company. 

The outcome of such a move is unclear, as Musk could make various arguments about why he is not bound to carry out the agreement. 

‘Twitter has and will continue to cooperatively share information with Mr. Musk to consummate the transaction in accordance with the terms of the merger agreement,’ the company said. 

Part of that data is the so-called ‘firehose,’ a data set comprising all tweets on the platform analyzed by different parameters, such as devices of users or profiles of accounts that publish tweets, according to people familiar with the matter.

Twitter sells this data to social media monitoring companies as part of its licensing business but plans to furnish it to Musk for free as part of the information exchange, the sources said. 

The firehose does not contain confidential information, such personal details of Twitter users that are not public or how often they verify their accounts, the sources added.

The firehose, which is currently available to a handful of companies for an undisclosed subscription fee, could be released to Musk as soon as this week, the Washington Post reported. 

Meanwhile, a new study suggests that about 10 percent of Twitter ‘s active accounts are posting ‘spam content’.

London-based data analytics firm GlobalData said in a report on Wednesday that its mathematical model found that spam accounts are roughly double the 5 percent share claimed by Twitter.

Musk has been threatening to walk away from his agreement to buy the company unless Twitter backs up its estimate that false or spam accounts comprise less than 5 percent of its user base. 

‘The precise proportion of spam accounts is difficult to compute, as it is almost impossible to confirm the identity of the entity behind a tweet handle,’ said GlobalData senior data scientist Sidharth Kumar.

TIMELINE OF ELON MUSK’S BID TO CONTROL TWITTER  

January 31: Musk starts buying shares of Twitter in near-daily installments, amassing a 5% stake in the company by mid-March.

March 26: Musk, who has 80 million Twitter followers and is active on the site, said that he is giving ‘serious thought’ to building an alternative to Twitter, questioning free speech on the platform and whether Twitter is undermining democracy. He also privately reaches out to Twitter board members, including his friend and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey.

March 27: After privately informing them of his growing stake in the company, Musk starts conversations with Twitter’s CEO and board members about potentially joining the board. Musk also mentions taking Twitter private or starting a competitor, according to later regulatory filings.

April 4: A regulatory filing reveals that Musk has rapidly become the largest shareholder of Twitter after acquiring a 9% stake, or 73.5 million shares, worth about $3 billion.

April 5: Musk is offered a seat on Twitter’s board on the condition he amass no more than 14.9% of the company’s stock. CEO Parag Agrawal said in a tweet that ‘it became clear to us that he would bring great value to our Board.’

April 11: Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal announces Musk will not be joining the board after all.

April 14: Twitter reveals in a securities filing that Musk has offered to buy the company outright for about $44 billion.

April 15: Twitter’s board unanimously adopts a ‘poison pill’ defense in response to Musk’s proposed offer, attempting to thwart a hostile takeover.

April 21: Musk lines up $46.5 billion in financing to buy Twitter. Twitter board is under pressure to negotiate.

April 25: Musk reaches a deal to buy Twitter for $44 billion and take the company private. The outspoken billionaire has said he wanted to own and privatize Twitter because he thinks it’s not living up to its potential as a platform for free speech.

April 29: Musk sells roughly $8.5 billion worth of shares in Tesla to help fund the purchase of Twitter, according to regulatory filings.

May 5: Musk strengthens his offer to buy Twitter with commitments of more than $7 billion from a diverse group of investors including Silicon Valley heavy hitters like Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison.

May 10: In a hint at how he would change Twitter, Musk says he’d reverse Twitter’s ban of former President Donald Trump following the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, calling the ban a ‘morally bad decision’ and ‘foolish in the extreme.’

May 13: Musk said that his plan to buy Twitter is ‘ temporarily on hold.’ Musk said that he needs to pinpoint the number of spam and fake accounts on the social media platform. Shares of Twitter tumble, while shares of Tesla rebound sharply.   

June 6: Musk threatens to end his $44 billion agreement to buy Twitter, accusing the company of refusing to give him information about its spam bot accounts. 

June 16: Elon Musk will speak to Twitter employees this week for the first time since launching his $44 billion bid. 

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