Elon Musk Says Committed To Twitter Acquisition Hours After Putting Deal On Hold Over Fake Account Details

Twitter, on May 2, had informed the stock exchanges that the fake or spam accounts on its platform represent less than 5 per cent of its monetisable daily active users during the first quarter

Elon Musk had sealed the deal to acquire Twitter for $44 billion cash in a transaction in April. Image: Getty

Source : Getty

New Delhi: Tesla Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Elon Musk on Friday said the $44-billion acquisition of Twitter Inc. was temporarily on hold, citing pending details on spam and fake accounts. However, after a few hours, Musk again tweeted saying that he is committed to acquisition of the micro-blogging site. In a tweet, the Tesla CEO said, "Still committed to acquisition".

Still committed to acquisition

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 13, 2022

In pre-market trading, shares of the social media firm tanked 20 per cent after the announcement by Musk. However, after the second announcement, shares recouped some of the losses. At 6.45 pm IST, shares of Twitter were at 39.81, down 11.69 per cent in the pre-market trading. 

In a tweet, Musk wrote, "Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5 per cent of users."

Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of usershttps://t.co/Y2t0QMuuyn

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 13, 2022

On May 2, Twitter had informed the stock exchanges that the fake or spam accounts on its platform represent less than 5 per cent of its monetisable daily active users during the first quarter.

The micro-blogging platform had 22.9 crore users who were served advertising in the January-March quarter. The disclosure came days after Musk, shortly after sealing the deal to acquire Twitter, said that one of his priorities would be to remove "spam bots" from the platform.

According to Reuters report, the Tesla CEO's deal to buy Twitter is expected to take months to come to fruition as the the world's richest man needs to secure the finances. He has raised $13 billion in loans secured against Twitter and a $12.5 billion margin loan tied to his own Tesla stock.

Over the past couple of weeks, Musk has been speaking about reducing the operational costs of Twitter and has tweeted about eliminating the salaries of the company's board of directors, which he said could result in about $3 million in savings.

Musk had sealed the deal to acquire Twitter for $44 billion cash in a transaction in April.