Paxton's office said in a Monday release that an investigation had been launched into 'whether Twitter's reporting on real versus fake users is 'false, misleading, or deceptive'' under Texas law.
CEO, who moved to Texas in 2020 and more recently pledged to"vote Republican," wrote a letter to Twitter on the same day, threatening to cancel his $44 billion purchase over claims that the platform was not providing adequate data about the fake accounts.
"Texans rely on Twitter's public statements that nearly all its users are real people. It matters not only for regular Twitter users, but also Texas businesses and advertisers who use Twitter for their livelihoods," Paxton said in a."If Twitter is misrepresenting how many accounts are fake to drive up their revenue, I have a duty to protect Texans."
The release from Paxton's office gave Twitter a June 27 deadline"to respond to Attorney General Paxton's Demand," arguing that the investigation required the company"to turn over documents related to how it calculates and manages its user data and how these numbers relate to Twitter's advertising businesses."
The release also noted that Twitter had been under"intense scrutiny" for disclosing in company filings that 5 percent of accounts were fake, while"they may in fact comprise as much as 20% or more." A claim that 20 percent of Twitter accounts are fake was by Musk. Neither Musk nor Paxton's office have offered any evidence to back up the claim, or explanation on how they arrived at the figure.disclosed in a filing with the U.S.
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