Those paragraphs are discussing that there are a number of KNOWN fake accounts that are not included in mDAU.
The very next paragraphs state that they have no idea just how many total fake accounts there are. That is, there is a number of fake accounts that they don't know about (and don't make any effort to count), and they are concerned that counting them will affect stock price.
Said another way, they are admitting they aren't counting all the fake accounts. That's in paragraphs 17 & 18
The relevant financial representations have always been about the mDAU numbers. It's Musk who is trying to pretend that the "5% of mDAU may be spam account" really meant "5% of all accounts are spam accounts."
Mudge isn't saying that Twitter's statements about mDAU are wrong; he's saying that he thinks it's a bad metric, because mDAU ignores the effect of fake accounts. Even if Mudge is correct in his assessment that mDAU is a bad metric, it does not sustain any allegations of fraud.
> Mudge isn't saying that Twitter's statements about mDAU are wrong;
He literally did say that. I get the sense you're not reading the whistleblower docs... Or just arguing for the sake of arguing. I've quoted Mudge. Whereas you are inferring things based on what Musk said.
I've already linked the docs so I won't again. I've pointed out where this information can be found. Those documents are in no uncertain terms stating that Twitter does not have a grasp of how many fake accounts there are. Therefore, any number they give is wrong.
> On May 13, Mr. Musk expressed doubts about the accuracy of Twitter's claim in legal filings that <5% of accounts are “bots,” or automated spam accounts that spread propaganda and hurt the experience of real users:'
He's repeating Musk's claim here. Recall that Twitter says that 5% of mDAU are potentially spam. That's not the same as accounts.
P16:
> However there are many millions of active accounts that are not considered “mDAU,” either because they are spam bots, or because Twitter does not believe it «can monetize them.
So when Twitter is saying "mDAU generally excludes spam bots", he's indirectly saying that it's correct.
P26:
> A more meaningful and honest answer to Mr. Musk’s question would be trivial for Twitter to calculate, given that Twitter is already doing a decent job excluding spam bots and other worthless accounts from its calculation of mDAU. But this number is likely to be meaningfully higher than 5%:
Quite literally saying here that "<5% of mDAU is spam" is correct!
So, yes I have read the whistleblower docs. The disconnect here is that I believe you have not read Twitter's filings, which do not in fact claim that "<5% of accounts are spam" but "<5% of mDAU are spam" (see, e.g., https://sec.report/Document/0001418091-22-000075/).
This is an incorrect conclusion to draw. Twitter states that they estimate that a certain percentage of a subset of users is spam/false accounts. That they don't know the percentage of spam/false accounts outside of that subset of users has no bearing on the accuracy of their statement regarding their chosen subset.
As a greatly reduced example, I can say that neither the @elonmusk nor the @chancery_daily accounts are spam accounts. I have no idea how many accounts Twitter has, let alone how many of those are spam accounts, but that lack of knowledge does not affect the accuracy of my first statement.
