Twitter purging spam accounts ‘right now,’ says Elon Musk

WASHINGTON

Twitter has begun removing spam accounts, its owner, Elon Musk, said Wednesday.

"Twitter is purging a lot of spam/scam accounts right now, so you may see your follower count drop," the tech billionaire tweeted.

Before his $44 billion purchase of the social media company, Musk threatened to exit the deal if Twitter did not reveal proof that spam and bot accounts were fewer than 5% of users.

The purge is expected to eliminate the number of Musk’s own followers.

Citing an analysis by Scottish digital skills academy CodeClan, Forbes reported that Musk could lose 13.5 million followers if spam accounts were removed from Twitter.