Less than a month after it was announced Tesla CEO Elon Musk would be purchasing Twitter for $43 billion, the deal has been put on hold.
In a May 13 tweet, Musk, the current world’s richest man stated:
“Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users.”
Musk provided few details, but followed up with another tweet a few hours later in which he said he was “still committed to acquisition.”
Quarterly Financial Report Raises Questions About Fake Accounts
Musk’s initial tweet linked to a Reuters article covering Twitter’s quarterly financial report.
The report included an estimation that only 5% of the platform’s approximately 300 million monthly active users are spam or fake accounts.
Twitter based this estimate on a review of sample accounts and stated the number was “reasonable.” However, it acknowledged the measurements were not independently verified and the number of these accounts could be higher.
Musk previously tweeted that one of his missions upon acquiring Twitter would be to eliminate spam bots.
Tweets Come After Twitter Exec Shakeup
Musk’s tweet comes just one day after it was announced two Twitter executives were leaving the company.
General Manager of Consumer Keyvon Beykpour and Revenue Product Lead Bruce Falck were asked to leave by current CEO Parag Agrawal.
The company also announced it was instituting a hiring freeze in an effort to be more financially responsible.
Investors Show Concerns Deal Will Go Through
Following news of Musk’s Twitter acquisition deal, stock prices of the social media platform jumped to close to $50 per share, though they never reached the $54.20 a share price the deal agreed upon.
Market analysists have suggested this is a sign investors were skeptical the deal will ever go through.
Part of the concern seems to be concern about Musk borrowing against Tesla’s stock to fund the purchase.
The initial tweet sent shares of the social media platform tumbling by 20% in pre-market trading, though they rebounded following the second tweet.
Featured Image: Sergei Elagin/Shutterstock