Elon Musk says Twitter legal team told him he violated an NDA

Tesla CEO Elon Musk attends the Tesla Shanghai Gigafactory groundbreaking ceremony in Shanghai, China January 7, 2019. REUTERS/Aly Song

May 14 (Reuters) – Elon Musk on Saturday tweeted that Twitter Inc’s (TWTR.N) 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 Inc (TSLA.O).

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

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% fake/spam/duplicate."

Reporting by Rachna Dhanrajani in Bengaluru; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Richard Chang

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