“Twitter Deal Temporarily On Hold”: Elon Musk

New Delhi: Elon Musk on Friday, tweeted that his Twitter deal worth $44-billion is temporarily on hold. He cited pending details in support of calculation that spam and fake accounts indeed represent less than 5% of users.

Shares of the Social Media company have fallen from 17.7% to $37.10 in premarket trading. It is the lowest 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.

On Tuesday, the implied probability of the deal closing at the agreed price fell below 50% for the first time. Twitter shares dropped below $46.75.

Earlier this month Twitter had estimated that false or spam accounts represented fewer than 5% of its monetizable daily active users. This was during the first quarter, when it recorded 229 million users who were served advertising.

“Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users,” Musk tweeted on Friday.

Speaking of changes to be brought in the app on his priorities, he said said that one of his priorities would be to remove “spam bots” from the platform. 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.

Until the deal with Musk is closed, the social media company said it had faced many risks. The risks included whether advertisers would continue to spend on Twitter amid “potential uncertainty regarding future plans and strategy.”

Musk is very critical about the Twitter’s moderation policy. He has said he wants Twitter’s algorithm to prioritize tweets to be public. He said he is against too much power on the service to corporations that advertise.