Musk said his $44 billion bid to purchase Twitter was temporarily on hold until he could get more details to confirm that less than 5 percent of the social network's users are fake.
Mr. Musk made the announcement in the pre-dawn hours on Friday. He linked to a May 2 article about a regulatory filing that included an estimate of the number of fake accounts.
In premarket trading on Friday, shares in the micro-blogging site fell about 20 percent.
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
After taking over, Mr. Musk said that he would focus on ridding the platform of fake accounts, bots and spam.
The future of a deal that would put one of the most influential social media platforms under the control of the world's wealthiest person is in question after Mr. Musk's comments.
If Mr. Musk decided to back out of the deal, he would have to pay a $1 billion termination fee.
A recent plunge in stock prices has impacted Mr. Musk's plan to finance the deal with a considerable amount of his personal fortune. The stock of the company has fallen in the last month. Mr. Musk is selling his shares to raise money for personal loans.
If a deal were to be completed, Mr. Musk would have to draw on his stock in the electric carmaker to plug potential financial holes. If the stock fell too much, Mr. Musk's personal loans would require him to add more security, limiting his ability to invest.
This is a breaking news story. You can check back for updates.
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