Elon Musk's war against Twitter bots isn't going very well. Next, you'll have to pay to DM those who don't follow you.

An illustration of Elon Musk and the Twitter logo.

Jonathan Raa/Getty Images

• When Elon Musk took over Twitter, he said getting rid of spam bots was a priority.
• But data seen by the WSJ suggests he hasn't made much progress so far.
• As part of this war on bots, Musk says you'll soon have to pay to DM accounts who don't follow you.

Last year, Elon Musk promised "to defeat the spam bots or die trying."

So far, he doesn't appear to have made much progress.

The Wall Street Journal reported this week that the level of bot activity on Twitter is about the same as before Musk took over.

Cheq, a cybersecurity firm, carried out an analysis to help its 15,000 clients decide on advertising strategies on Twitter. It found roughly 12% of ad traffic was driven by bots in the first quarter of both this year and last, per the WSJ.

"It's clearly the case that bad bots remain pervasive on Twitter," Jonathan Mayer, an assistant professor of computer science at Princeton University, who did an in-depth study into the platform, told the Journal. 

The apparent prevalence of bots on Twitter nearly toppled Musk's takeover last year.

At the time, Musk said at least 20% of Twitter accounts are fake or spam accounts, but Twitter's lawyers said his chosen data firms found the number to be more like 5% to 11%, Insider reported.

Twitter Blue, Musk's new subscription service for the platform, was supposed to help remedy this. He said in November it "will destroy the bots," but that doesn't appear to have happened so far.

In April, Musk appeared to offer a $1 million bounty to convict those responsible for bot networks.

But it looks like he'll have to do more to win his crusade against the bots.

On Monday, Musk said he hopes to release an update later this week, which would mean only Verified users — those who pay $8 a month — can DM accounts that don't follow them.

"As I've said many times, it is increasingly difficult to distinguish between AI bots," Musk added. "The only 'social networks' that survive will be those that require verification."

Insider contacted Twitter for comment. The company responded with an automated message that didn't address the inquiry.

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