I hereby challenge Parag Agrawal to public debate, Musk says amid Twitter row

Amid the row over Twitter’s acrimonious deal, Tesla chief Elon Musk challenged Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal to participate in a public debate over the social media giant’s “bot percentage”.

“Let it prove to the public that Twitter has <5% daily fake or spam users," the SpaceX boss said in a series of tweets challenging the company's CEO. In fact, Musk went further and said that "if Twitter just provides its method of sampling 100 accounts and how they are confirmed to be real, the deal should continue on the original terms."

Also Read: Court Rules Musk’s Twitter Countersuit Will Be Made Public

Musk had called off the $44 billion deal after bidding for the social networking site. In a filing, Musk argued that the number of users viewing ads on the platform was nearly 65 million fewer than the company’s figure of 238 million. The case is set to open Oct. 17 in Delaware.

Watch: Tesla CEO accuses Twitter of fraud

Twitter sued Musk asking him to complete the deal, however, the Tesla chief fought back while accusing the company of misleading him about its user base. Twitter has claimed that less than 5% of its users are bots, but Musk has now publicly disputed that figure.

Twitter said Musk couldn’t walk away from the deal because he didn’t seek any information about the issue during the takeover bid. The company informed the court that it had “complyed in all respects with the merger agreement”.

(With agency contributions)

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