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

iPhone 17 Pro 34ths Perspective

iPhone 17 Pro Launching Later This Year With These 10 New Features

Sunday March 23, 2025 10:00 am PDT by
While the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are not expected to launch until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices. Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of March 2025: Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro models have a titanium frame, and the iPhone ...
iOS 18

iOS 18.4 Expected Next Week - Here Are the Release Notes

Friday March 28, 2025 2:01 pm PDT by
With the second release candidate of iOS 18.4 that Apple seeded out today, the company finally provided us with release notes that give a full rundown on what to expect. There's an Apple Vision Pro app, new Apple Intelligence features for notifications and additional language support, plus an Apple News Food feature for Apple News+ subscribers, and several updates that should improve the...
Magic Mouse Green

What to Expect From the Magic Mouse 3

Saturday March 29, 2025 10:15 am PDT by
Apple is reportedly working on a new Magic Mouse. Below, we recap what to expect. The two key rumors for the Magic Mouse 3 so far include a relocated charging port, along with a more ergonomic design. It was briefly rumored that the Magic Mouse 3 would also feature voice control, but that was misinterpreted information. Relocated Charging Port While the Magic Mouse switched from...
top stories 2025 03 29

Top Stories: WWDC 2025 Announced, iPhone 17 Pro and iOS 19 Rumors, and More

Saturday March 29, 2025 6:00 am PDT by
Apple's big developer event is a little over two months away, and rumors about what we can expect to see in Apple's next major operating system updates are becoming increasingly frequent. A public release of iOS 18.4 is also imminent with a number of updates and improvements, although we won't be getting the major Apple Intelligence Siri upgrades that had reportedly been planned for this...
Foldable iPhone 2023 Feature Homescreen

Six Things to Know About Apple's Upcoming Foldable iPhone

Friday March 28, 2025 3:54 pm PDT by
We've been hearing rumors about a foldable iPhone for almost a decade now, but it looks like we might finally see the device come to fruition in 2026. We're going to be waiting many more months for the foldable iPhone, but so far we're hearing good things. Apple wants to make it creaseless. It's taken Apple multiple years to design a foldable iPhone that it's satisfied with because Apple ...
iOS 19 visionOS UI Elements

Apple Codename Provides Clue About iOS 19's Rumored New Design

Sunday March 30, 2025 6:40 am PDT by
Multiple sources have claimed that iOS 19 will introduce a new design with more translucent buttons, menus, notification banners, and more, and there is now another clue that points towards this glass-like appearance. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman today said the new design project is codenamed "Solarium" internally. A solarium is a room with glass walls that allow in plenty of sunlight, so this...
Facebook Feature

Facebook's New iPhone App Feature Turns the Clock Back to 2007

Thursday March 27, 2025 1:59 pm PDT by
In the mid-to-late 2000s, Facebook was all about staying connected with friends and family. However, as the social media platform added new features and grew over time, that core experience began to get drowned out. That changes starting now, according to Meta, which today introduced a new feature that will "bring back the joy" of classic Facebook. Specifically, Meta has redesigned the...
Foldable iPhone 2023 Feature Homescreen

iPhone Foldable Display Said to Feature iPad-Style 4:3 Aspect Ratio

Friday March 28, 2025 3:44 am PDT by
Apple's upcoming "iPhone Fold" will feature a foldable screen with a 4:3 aspect ratio, according to a Chinese leaker who previously leaked the book-style device's display dimensions. The Weibo-based account Digital Chat Station claims that Apple will adopt a "roughly" 4:3 aspect ratio on the inner display in order to achieve consistency between the outer display, as well as to ensure parity...

Top Rated Comments

Dan From Canada Avatar
38 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
38 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
38 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
38 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
38 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
38 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)