Elon Musk early Friday morning said his plan to buy social networking company Twitter is being "temporarily put on hold" due to a report of fake accounts on the platform.
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It was not immediately clear from Musk's tweet whether formal steps had been taken to stop the acquisition, which was agreed in late April for about $44 billion. Twitter's value, measured by its share price, has fallen in recent weeks.
Twitter was worth about $35 billion Friday morning. Immediately after Musk's tweet, Twitter's stock price fell about 18%.
Musk has so far not mentioned any steps taken to stop the deal.
Musk's tweet included a link to a Reuters article from May 2 in Twitter's public filings, in which the company said fake or spam accounts accounted for only about 5% of total user base . Musk has made cracking down on fake accounts a major part of his rationale for buying the company.
Twitter currently has approximately 229 million daily active users.
Although the deal is not yet complete — large-scale acquisitions often take months or even years to close — Twitter has already shown signs of major changes. On Thursday, Twitter fired two executives and instituted a hiring freeze.
Friday's announcement from Musk adds another chapter to an already strange and bizarre acquisition process that began in early April, when it was revealed that he had acquired a significant stake in Twitter.
But since then, both the circumstances surrounding Twitter and the broader tech industry have changed. After initially agreeing to join board , Musk reversed course and instead initiated the acquisition, eventually agreeing to a deal with the company's board.
Musk's personal circumstances have also changed since then. The Bloomberg Billionaires Index still ranks Musk as the world's richest person, but his net worth fell by nearly 20% (about $56 billion) in 2022, largely due to the sharp decline in the share price of Tesla, where he is CEO. Some of the money Musk borrowed for the deal is backed by Tesla.
A prominent investment group recently said it believed Musk could try to make a lower bid for Twitter.
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Twitter has a history of battling fake, spam, and bot accounts, some of which have previously been found to be spreading misleading information. These accounts mostly violate the company’s policies that prohibit “spam ,” “inauthentic engagement” intended to make something seem more popular than it is, “coordinated activity” that attempts to manipulate conversations , and “coordinated harmful activity that encourages or promotes behavior that violates the Twitter Rules.”
Musk said he wants to buy Twitter to embrace the principles of free speech but also to combat spam and bots.
Source of information: nbcnews.com
