Elon Musk Puts $44 Billion Twitter Deal 'On Hold' [Updated]

Elon Musk is putting his $44 billion takeover of Twitter "temporarily on hold" after the company claimed that less than 5% of its users are spam or fake accounts.

twitter elon musk
The Tesla chief tweeted on Friday that the deal was being frozen while he waited for details backing up Twitter's claim:

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

Musk linked his decision to a May 2 Reuters report referring to a filing with the US financial regulator, in which Twitter asserted that fake and spam accounts represented less than 5% of its daily average users:

We have performed an internal review of a sample of accounts and estimate that the average of false or spam accounts during the first quarter of 2022 represented fewer than 5% of our mDAU during the quarter. The false or spam accounts for a period represents the average of false or spam accounts in the samples during each monthly analysis period during the quarter. In making this determination, we applied significant judgment, so our estimation of false or spam accounts may not accurately represent the actual number of such accounts, and the actual number of false or spam accounts could be higher than we have estimated.

Following Musk's announcement in April that he was offering to buy Twitter, the Tesla CEO said that he wanted to make the social media platform "better than ever" with new product features that will defeat spam bots and authenticate all humans.

As Friday's story broke, Twitter's share price fell by as much as 25% in pre-market trading, and is currently down around 15%.

Update 4:53 a.m.: In a follow-up tweet, Musk says he is "still committed to the acquisition."

Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Popular Stories

Apple Watch Ultra Night Mode Screen

Apple Watch Ultra 3 Launching Later This Year With Two Key Upgrades

Wednesday July 2, 2025 1:13 pm PDT by
The long wait for an Apple Watch Ultra 3 appears to be nearly over, and it is rumored to feature both satellite connectivity and 5G support. Apple Watch Ultra's existing Night Mode In his latest Power On newsletter, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said that the Apple Watch Ultra 3 is on track to launch this year with "significant" new features, including satellite connectivity, which would let you...
iPhone 17 Pro in Hand Feature Lowgo

iPhone 17 Pro Max Battery Capacity Leaked

Thursday July 3, 2025 5:40 am PDT by
The iPhone 17 Pro Max will feature the biggest ever battery in an iPhone, according to the Weibo leaker known as "Instant Digital." In a new post, the leaker listed the battery capacities of the iPhone 11 Pro Max through to the iPhone 16 Pro Max, and added that the iPhone 17 Pro Max will feature a battery capacity of 5,000mAh: iPhone 11 Pro Max: 3,969mAh iPhone 12 Pro Max: 3,687mAh...
iPhone 17 Pro in Hand Feature Lowgo

iPhone 17 Pro Coming Soon With These 14 New Features

Friday July 4, 2025 1:05 pm PDT by
Apple's next-generation iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are just over two months away, and there are plenty of rumors about the devices. Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models. Latest Rumors These rumors surfaced in June and July:Apple logo repositioned: Apple's logo may have a lower position on the back of the iPhone 17 Pro models, compared to previous...
iPhone 17 Pro Lower Logo Magsafe

iPhone 17 Pro's New MagSafe Design Revealed in Leaked Photo

Wednesday July 2, 2025 8:37 am PDT by
The upcoming iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are rumored to have a slightly different MagSafe magnet layout compared to existing iPhone models, and a leaked photo has offered a closer look at the supposed new design. The leaker Majin Bu today shared a photo of alleged MagSafe magnet arrays for third-party iPhone 17 Pro cases. On existing iPhone models with MagSafe, the magnets form a...
airpods pro 2

AirPods Pro 3 to Help Maintain Apple's Place in Earbud Market Amid Increasing Low-Cost Competition

Thursday July 3, 2025 7:25 am PDT by
Apple's position as the dominant force in the global true wireless stereo (TWS) earbud market is expected to continue through 2025, according to Counterpoint Research. The forecast outlines a 3% year-over-year increase in global TWS unit shipments for 2025, signaling a transition from rapid growth to a more mature phase for the category. While Apple is set to remain the leading brand by...
Wi Fi WiFi General Feature

iOS 26 Adds a Useful New Wi-Fi Feature to Your iPhone

Wednesday July 2, 2025 6:36 am PDT by
iOS 26 and iPadOS 26 add a smaller yet useful Wi-Fi feature to iPhones and iPads. As spotted by Creative Strategies analyst Max Weinbach, sign-in details for captive Wi-Fi networks are now synced across iPhones and iPads running iOS 26 and iPadOS 26. For example, while Weinbach was staying at a Hilton hotel, his iPhone prompted him to fill in Wi-Fi details from his iPad that was already...
iOS 18

Apple Releases Second iOS 18.6 Public Beta

Tuesday July 1, 2025 10:19 am PDT by
Apple today seeded the second betas of upcoming iOS 18.6 and iPadOS 18.6 updates to public beta testers, with the betas coming just a day after Apple provided the betas to developers. Apple has also released a second beta of macOS Sequoia 15.6. Testers who have signed up for beta updates through Apple's beta site can download iOS 18.6 and iPadOS 18.6 from the Settings app on a compatible...

Top Rated Comments

Dan From Canada Avatar
41 months ago

Seems like only yesterday Must realized that content moderation was hard.

Oh wait.
Musk has no problem trying to silence critics of Tesla.
He lives on a one way street.
Score: 32 Votes (Like | Disagree)
LukeHarrison Avatar
41 months ago

So am I getting it right - he now considers to NOT buy it, because Twitter has "only so little fake accounts"?
(my question is genuine, because english is not my 1st language and I really don't get it).
I think the point is Twitter themselves say there are so few fake accounts, but Elon (and the rest of us, frankly) think that there's many more than that.
Score: 32 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Dan From Canada Avatar
41 months ago
I created a twitter account many years ago when they went online.
Over the years Twitter has become nothing but a toxic cesspool of politics, from either side.
Goodbye Twitter. The account has been dead for months and will stay that way.
Score: 26 Votes (Like | Disagree)
raybo Avatar
41 months ago

Wonder if he’s having cold feet. How does it matter how many accounts are fake? Once he takes over, he can check and change anything he wants. Doesn’t seem like a substantial reason to put the deal on hold. Or probably there’s some angle I don’t understand.
It's illegal for a publicly traded firm to overstate its value. If the fake accounts were found to be 15% or 20%, for example, the stock price would be overvalued.
Score: 26 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Danfango Avatar
41 months ago
He’s probably trying to devalue it so he can buy it for less.

Realistically for a turd circling the bottom of the bowl it’s pretty overvalued.
Score: 21 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ewestlund Avatar
41 months ago
So you’re telling me that Elon Musk does, in fact, care about the economics of buying Twitter.
Score: 20 Votes (Like | Disagree)