Billionaire Elon Musk said his deal on Twitter was “temporarily put on hold” for the company’s spam and fake user accounts.
Mr. Musk, who last week secured $7 billion from new investors for his $44 billion takeovertweeted: “Twitter pending settlement details support calculation that spam/spoof accounts actually represent less than 5% of users.”
He later tweeted: “Still committed to buyback.”
Shares of the social media company fell 20% in pre-market trading.
The world’s richest man and the chief executive officer of Tesla Inc has said that if his acquisition goes through, one of his priorities is to remove the “spam scheme” from the platform.
Earlier this month, the company estimated that fake or spam accounts representing less than 5% of daily active users were able to make money in the first quarter.
It also said it faces a number of risks until the deal with the SpaceX founder closes, including whether advertisers will continue to spend on Twitter.
Twitter recently adopted a “poison” strategy in an effort to fend off a hostile takeover, but some investors want the tech giant to take Musk’s offer seriously.
Elon Musk’s pause in Twitter takeover causes a hit
What is Elon Musk going to do?
It’s not the first time, that’s the question on the minds of Twitter executives, global investors and many of his 92 million followers, after the world’s richest man announced announced, in a tweet, spontaneously that his purchase of the social media platform was “temporary. institutional”.
The impact was immediate, an initial 16% drop in the price of shares he valued at $54.20 (£44.50) three weeks ago in a $44bn (£36.1bn) buyout. pound).
Mr. Musk has repeatedly stated that he also wants Twitter to become a platform for free speech and reduce reliance on advertising.
The tech mogul also said he would reverse the platform’s “stupid” ban on former US president Donald Trump.
And he considered adding new features including an edit button and allowing longer tweets to be posted.
