Elon Musk promises to clean Twitter of 'Arabic-language spam'

Elon Musk tweeted in Arabic on Saturday, promising to clean up Arabic-language spam on Twitter.

Musk responded to Saudi social media blogger Thnaiyan, who requested the new Twitter boss fix the problem of adverts and spam flooding Arabic-language hashtags on the site.

"Every time I see a hashtag trending in Arabic I cannot find any original or meaningful tweets, it's full of ads and spam. Please fix," Thnaiyan requested in a tweet to Musk.

"You will," Musk replied in Arabic - despite Twitter and Google's translating functions incorrectly translating his response to "will do".

سوف تفعل

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 12, 2022

Arabs on Twitter advised Musk not to rely on Google Translate in the future, to avoid grammatical errors which led to some confusion on the site. 

He means it will be activated

— سياف (@eastfham) November 13, 2022

"He means it will be activated," Twitter user Seyaf wrote.

Others joked about Musk's grammatical mistake, offering the world's richest man assistance with Arabic translation in return for favours.

"Happy to assist you in a more accurate Arabic replies… in return, my 10-year-old son gets to see (one) @SpaceX rocket launch in person," Twitter user Abdulaziz Alghafees wrote.

Happy to assist you in a more accurate Arabic replies until 2025.

In return, my 10 year old son gets to see (one) @SpaceX rocket launch in person. Trust me, its a good deal. 😆

— Abdulaziz Alghafees (@Al_Ghafees) November 13, 2022

Before taking ownership of Twitter, Musk previously walked away from the multi-billion dollar deal to acquire the social media platform based on allegations that the site was not clear about the number of false or spam accounts on the site.

This prompted strong denials and plans for a lawsuit from previous Twitter owners, as their attorneys argued that even if Musk's experts came to a different conclusion about the spam accounts, it would not amount to a breach significant enough to let him break the buyout contract.

Musk took over the social media network in October, and controversially fired half of its 7,500 employees days later, saying the company was losing $4 four million a day.