Elon Musk tweets $44B deal to buy Twitter ‘temporarily on hold’

Elon Musk took to Twitter early Friday to say his $44 billion deal to buy the social network is “temporarily on hold,” The Associated Press is reporting.

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“Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users,” the Tesla and SpaceX CEO wrote shortly before 6 a.m. EDT, linking to a Reuters article published earlier this month. Twitter had said in filings that phony accounts comprised “fewer than 5% of its monetizable daily active users” in the first months of 2022, according to Reuters.

Musk later tweeted that he is “still committed to (the) acquisition.”

Musk, 50, previously has spoken out against spam accounts on the site.

“If our Twitter bid succeeds, we will defeat the spam bots or die trying!” he tweeted April 21, adding that he would “authenticate all real humans.”

Days later, Twitter announced in an April 25 news release that “it has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by an entity wholly owned by Elon Musk, for $54.20 per share in cash in a transaction valued at approximately $44 billion.”

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Musk added in a statement: “Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated. I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans. Twitter has tremendous potential – I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it.”

Regulatory filings made public on April 28 showed that Musk sold about $4 billion in Tesla stock in the two days after he agreed to purchase the social network, the AP reported at the time.

>> RELATED STORY: Musk sells $4B in Tesla shares after making deal for Twitter, filings show

Twitter fired two top managers Thursday: Kayvon Beykpour, a general manager, and Bruce Falck, the company’s revenue and product lead, according to the AP.

– The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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