Musk Temporarily Halts Twitter Deal

Elon Musk said that a deal to acquire Twitter is temporarily on hold over spam and fake user accounts operating on the platform. Musk tweeted the proposed $44 billion acquisition was paused pending details supporting the calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users. He followed this post shortly after with a tweet stating: “Still committed to acquisition.“

Twitter released a filing earlier citing that 5% of spam/bot accounts represented its monetizable daily active users during Q1, days after Musk had stated one of his priorities following his proposed takeover was to remove such accounts from the platform. Musk earlier outlined plans to reverse a Twitter ban on former US President Donald Trump should he take over.

Perhaps in a link to Musk’s pending shake-up, Twitter also sacked GM Kayvon Beykpour and head of revenue and product Bruce Falck, as well as pausing hiring unless it was for business-critical roles. Before this news, it appeared Musk was closing in on the deal after a filing showed he had secured an additional $7 billion to take control of the company, as well as stating he would take over as CEO on an interim basis.