Jamie Dimon asks Elon Musk to “clean up” on Twitter

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon has thrown his support behind Elon Musk’s plan to remove spam and fake Twitter accounts if the Tesla boss completes his $44 billion purchase of the social media giant.

“I hope Musk cleans up on Twitter,” Dimon told CNBC in an interview Tuesday at the JPM Techstars conference in London.

Musk struck a deal to buy Twitter for $54.20 a share in April after amassing a 9.2% stake in the social media giant. At the time, the billionaire said he wanted to improve Twitter by adding new product features, opening up the algorithm, defeating spambots and authenticating all people.

Twitter claims that spam and fake accounts make up less than 5% of its total monetized daily active users.

“Why can’t Twitter know who you are when you come on board so they can eliminate all those people in the square who are bots and emails and stuff?” Dimon asked.

“Why can’t they give you a selection of algorithms? As opposed to one that just encourages you,” he added.

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In July, Musk notified Twitter that he was plans to terminate the agreement after claiming that the company breached its obligations by misrepresenting the number of spam and fake accounts on the platform.

In response, Twitter filed a lawsuit against Musk, accusing him of refusing to honor his obligations under the agreement because “the agreement he signed no longer serves his personal interests.” Musk went on to file a counterclaim, which was changed last month to include allegations from whistleblower and Twitter’s former security chief Peiter “Mudge” Zatko.

The two parties were scheduled for a legal settlement beginning Oct. 17 in the Delaware Court of Chancery. However, Musk has since reversed course, saying he intends to close the original terms of the deal pending receipt of the deal’s $12.5 billion in debt financing and assuming the Delaware Court of Chancery stays Twitter’s lawsuit against him and delays the upcoming trial .

Last week, the court stayed the trial on October 17, giving Musk until October 28 to terminate the agreement with Twitter. If he fails to close the deal, his trial with Twitter will take place in November. In September was Musk’s deal approved by Twitter’s shareholders.

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JPMorgan is notably absent from the list of banks that have committed to providing debt financing for Musk’s Twitter deal. Lenders include Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and Barclays.

In November 2021, JPMorgan sued Tesla for $162.2 million, accusing the electric car company of “clearly” breaching a 2014 contract related to warrants sold to the bank. The case focused on a dispute over how JPMorgan repriced its Tesla warrants as a result of Musk’s now-infamous 2018 tweet in which he said he had funds secured to take Tesla private at $420 per share.

Tesla filed a countersuit against the bank, accusing the company of “bad faith and greed” for demanding $162.2 million after changing the terms of warrants it received. The company claimed that JPMorgan “handed itself a windfall” after receiving a “multi-billion dollar payout” from Tesla’s soaring stock price.

Despite the lawsuit between the two companies, Dimon praised Musk on Tuesday as “very smart.”

Reuters contributed to this report