Update: Musk said he intends to go through with the deal and the stock is going back up. Since Biden, the market is down.
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. He shelved it until he has more information.
Musk had said one of his goals was to get rid of the bots.
The Tesla chief tweeted on Friday morning that the deal was being frozen while he awaited details behind Twitter’s assertion.
Twitter stock dropped 25% on the news, but Teslarose 5.9% to $770.98.
Musk did not clarify why Twitter’s filing on fake accounts would force him to put it on hold.
The entrepreneur, who is the world’s richest person, has made the eradication of fake spam or bot accounts central to his plans for the company. “If our twitter bid succeeds, we will defeat the spam bots or die trying!” he tweeted in April.
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
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