Jamie Dimon Says Musk Should ‘Clean Up Twitter’, Reiterates Tesla CEO’s Concerns

Jamie Dimon seems to be a fan of Elon Musk’s $44 billion Twitter taking over.

“I hope Musk cleans up Twitter,” says the… JPMorgan The CEO told CNBC’s Julianna Tatelbaum, adding that he thinks Musk should look into removing anonymous accounts from the site.

The comments mark the first time Dimon has specifically talked about the Musk-Twitter deal, which was revived last week after a new bid from the Tesla CEO to buy the social media platform at the share price of $54.20 they initially agreed to in April.

In a CNBC interview at the JPM Techstars conference in London, which aired Tuesday, Dimon echoed Musk’s concerns about the number of spam accounts on Twitter and said the company should give users more control over its recommendation algorithms.

“Why can’t Twitter know who you are when you get on board so they can eliminate all those people in the public square who are robots and emails and things like that?” said Dimon.

“Why can’t they give you a choice of algorithms? Instead of one that just cheers you up,” he added.

Musk has made no secret of his concerns with fake accounts on Twitter. In an April statement announcing his intention to buy the company, Musk spoke of “beating the spam bot and authenticating all the real people.” He also said he wants to make Twitter’s ranking algorithm open source and promote free speech on the platform.

Dimon’s comments are rife with the behind-the-scenes clashes between the two company executives.

In November 2021, JPMorgan sued Tesla for $162.2 million for allegedly breaching a 2014 contract related to stock warrants Tesla had sold to the bank.

The lawsuit revolved around a dispute over how the bank repriced the warrants following Musk’s infamous 2018 take-private tweet.

The suit was the subject of a report from the Wall Street Journal stating that Musk and Dimon never got along. According to the Journal, the couple’s attempts to resolve the issues have failed, and JPMorgan has long distanced itself from Tesla and Musk.

Monday, however, praised Dimon Musk. “In my opinion, Elon is very smart,” he said.

JPMorgan was notably absent from the list of banks lining up to provide $13 billion in debt financing for Musk’s purchase of Twitter, which includes Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and Barclays among the lenders who agreed to raise the funds.

However, a deterioration in credit markets has raised concerns about Musk’s financing. According to Bloomberg’s calculations, banks could be at risk for losses of $500 million or more if they continue to sell the debt now.

“They’re big guys, they can handle it,” Dimon said when asked about the funding issues.

Twitter and Musk have talked endlessly back and forth about whether or not the deal will go through. Musk is concerned that the company is not doing enough to address manipulation of the platform via bots. Twitter says it has been fair to Musk by revealing how many of its users are authentic.

In April, Musk and Twitter agreed to acquire the social media company by Tesla’s CEO for $54.20 a share. In July, Musk tried to pull out of the deal, citing red flags surrounding the company’s handling of bots. Twitter then sued Musk in an attempt to force him to close the deal.

Twitter and Musk would face trial in Delaware on Oct. 17 to resolve the billionaire’s bid to cancel the takeover unless they reached a settlement first. Musk wanted Twitter to end the lawsuit against him to finalize the deal. However, Twitter declined to oblige.

Musk was granted a slight delay in payment on Thursday, with a ruling from the Delaware Chancery Court judge he now has until Oct. 28 to close the deal if he wants to avoid a trial.