Elon Musk says Twitter deal ‘temporarily on hold’

By KELVIN CHAN
AP Business Writer

LONDON (AP) — Elon Musk says his planned $44 billion purchase of Twitter is “temporarily on hold” pending details on spam and fake accounts on the social media platform. The Tesla billionaire’s tweet Friday is another twist amid signs of internal turmoil over the proposed acquisition. Musk linked to a Reuters story from May 2 citing a financial filing from Twitter that estimated false or spam accounts made up fewer than 5% of the company’s “monetizable daily active users” in the first quarter. He says the deal is on hold pending details supporting that calculation, indicating he’s skeptical that the number of inauthentic accounts is that low. It wasn’t clear whether it could scuttle the deal. Stock in Twitter tumbled 18%.