Elon Musk has said his $44bn takeover of Twitter is “temporarily on hold” after the social media platform claimed that less than 5% of its users were spam or fake accounts.
The Tesla chief tweeted on Friday morning that the deal was being frozen while he awaited details behind Twitter’s assertion.
Musk announced the move alongside a link to a Reuters article published on 2 May that referred to a filing with the US financial regulator, in which Twitter claimed that false or spam accounts represented less than 5% of its daily average users.
Musk has railed at automated Twitter accounts – which are not run manually – and said after announcing the takeover that he wanted to improve the platform by “authenticating all humans”. He has agreed to pay a $1bn break fee to Twitter if he walks away from the deal.
The news sent Twitter’s shares down about 23% in pre-market trading, on concerns that the deal could collapse.
Source: The Guardian