Billionaire Elon Musk said on Friday that Twitter Inc (NYSE: TWTR) deal is temporarily on hold as the information on the number of fake accounts on the platform is still pending.
“Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users,” Musk tweeted.
Around after two hours, Musk tweeted that he was “still committed to the acquisition.”
Shares of the company fell as much as 18% in the day, closing at a decline of 9.7%.
Musk, who agreed to buy Twitter for $44 billion, had even tweeted earlier that he would prioritize removing “spam bots” from the platform.
Twitter had disclosed in a filing this month that fewer than 5% of its monetizable daily active users during the first quarter were bots or spam accounts.
Musk is waiting for the company to confirm this figure before he proceeds with the deal.
On Thursday, Twitter was trading at $44 a piece which reflects a $9 billion difference in market value from Musk’s purchase price of $54.20.
Picture Credits: Reuters
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