Elon Musk puts Twitter deal on hold over fake, spam account details

Elon Musk on Friday put his $44-billion deal for Twitter Inc temporarily on hold, citing pending details in support of calculation that spam and fake accounts indeed represent less than 5% of users. Shares of the social media company fell 17.7% to $37.10 in premarket trading, their lowest level since Musk disclosed his stake in the company in early April and subsequently made a "best and final" offer to take it private for $54.20 per share. The company had earlier this month estimated that false or spam accounts represented fewer than 5 per cent of its monetisable daily active users during the first quarter. Musk, the world's richest man, had recently said that one of his priorities would be to remove "spam bots" from the platform.

Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of usershttps://t.co/Y2t0QMuuyn

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 13, 2022

Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Musk's representatives or his company Tesla Inc were not immediately available for a comment. The social media company had said it faced several risks until the deal with Musk is closed, including whether advertisers would continue to spend on Twitter amid "potential uncertainty regarding future plans and strategy."