By Sheila Dang

(Reuters) – Twitter is gearing up for its most ambitious quarter of user growth, executives from the social media company’s consumer products division told staff at an internal meeting heard by Reuters on Tuesday.

Twitter is targeting growth of 13 million monetizable daily active users (mDAUs), or users who see advertising, this quarter, according to executives at the meeting.

Although Twitter added 20 million users in the second quarter of 2020 at the height of the pandemic compared to the previous quarter, the target of 13 million is the highest target ever set by the team, executives said. to staff.

Detailing the progress, executives said the company had so far achieved user growth of 8.5 million, which they said was one of the best growth quarters yet.

The San Francisco-based company is maintaining ambitious growth targets as its deal to acquire billionaire Elon Musk remains uncertain.

Musk, in a Monday filing, warned Twitter that he could walk away from the $44 billion deal if the company didn’t provide data that allowed him to independently verify the proportion of spam and fake accounts on the Internet. social media platform.

The company said in public filings that spam and fake accounts account for less than 5% of quarterly monetizable daily active users.

Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for additional comment.

In April, Twitter announced that it had added 12 million new users in the first quarter. It also withdrew its goals of reaching 315 million users and $7.5 billion in annual revenue by the end of 2023, citing Musk’s pending acquisition.

(Reporting by Sheila Dang in Dallas; Additional reporting by Akash Sriram and Yuvraj Malik; Editing by Mark Porter)