Elon Musk said Friday that his plan to buy Twitter for $44 billion is "temporarily on hold" as he tries to pinpoint the number of spam and fake social media accounts, another change amid signs of internal turmoil related to the proposed acquisition.
Musk, who has been vocal about his desire to get rid of Twitter's troubles with "spambots" posing as real people, seems doubtful the company will report it.
In a tweet, the Tesla billionaire linked a May 2 story to Reuters for a quarterly Twitter report that fake or spam accounts accounted for less than 5% of "daily active users available for monetization" in the first quarter.
“Twitter deals temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users,” Musk said, showing that he is sceptical that the number of inauthentic accounts is so small.
It is not clear whether the issue could undermine the deal. Shares in Twitter and Tesla took sharp turns in opposite directions, with Twitter shares dropping 18 per cent and Tesla, which Musk proposed to fund the Twitter deal, up 5 per cent.
Musk has sold more than $8 billion worth of stock to Tesla to fund the purchase.
Investors should weigh Musk's legal troubles, as well as a possible Twitter takeover, to distract from running the world's most valuable automaker.
Musk's tweet came a day after social media fired two of its top executives. Twitter says companies are suspending most hiring, except for key roles, and is “pulling back on non-labour costs to ensure we are being responsible and efficient.”
In a note to employees, confirmed by Twitter, CEO Parag Agrawal said the company had failed to achieve significant growth and revenue milestones after the company began investing "aggressively" to expand its customer base and to expand its sales.