Elon Musk says Twitter legal team told him he violated NDA by revealing bot-check sample size

The Tesla CEO said he got a call from Twitter’s legal team after claiming the social media platform uses a sample of 100 accounts to check for bots

Musk recently reached an agreement to buy Twitter for US$44 billion, but said the deal is ‘on hold’ while he verifies the proportion of bot accounts

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Elon Musk arrives for the 2022 Met Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York on May 2. Photo: TNS

Published: 10:43am, 16 May 2022Updated: 5:40pm, 16 May 2022

Elon Musk on Saturday tweeted that Twitter's legal team accused him of violating a nondisclosure agreement by revealing that the sample size for the social media platform’s checks on automated users was 100.

“Twitter legal just called to complain that I violated their NDA by revealing the bot check sample size is 100!” tweeted Musk, chief executive of electric car maker Tesla.

Musk on Friday tweeted that his US$44-billion cash deal to take the company private was “temporarily on hold” while he awaited data on the proportion of its fake accounts.

He said his team would test “a random sample of 100 followers” on Twitter to identify the bots. His response to a question prompted Twitter’s accusation.

When a user asked Musk to “elaborate on process of filtering bot accounts”, he replied. “I picked 100 as the sample size number, because that is what Twitter uses to calculate <5 per cent fake/spam/duplicate.”

Musk tweeted during the early hours of Sunday that he is yet to see “any” analysis that shows that the social media company has fake accounts less than 5 per cent.

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