Elon Musk's Twitter deal 'temporarily' on hold over issue of spam/fake accounts

By Ovunc Kutlu

ANKARA (AA) – Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter may have hit a snag, with the number of spam and fake accounts at issue, the controversial business mogul said Friday.

"Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users," Musk wrote on his own Twitter account.

The social media company announced earlier this month that it estimates false, spam, and fake accounts make up less than 5% of its total monetizable daily active users, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

Musk earlier said one of his priorities after his takeover would be removing spam and bots from the platform.

Twitter saw its stock price plummeting almost 22% to $35.18 per share in Friday pre-market hours on the New York Stock Exchange, after closing the previous day at $45.08.

Two Twitter executives announced Thursday they were leaving the social media firm, as it also announced a hiring freeze.

Twitter announced on April 25 that it had accepted Musk's offer to be purchased for $44 billion.

Many users of the service have expressed reservations about the deal, saying Musk’s more permissive approach could open the doors to more harassment, hate speech, and abuse.

Musk last week secured $7.1 billion in funding from a number of investors to buy the company, including tech firm Oracle's co-founder Larry Ellison, Saudi investor Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz Alsaud, and Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency marketplace by trading volume.