Elon Musk revealed on Friday that the Twitter deal is temporarily on hold due to the amount of spam and fake accounts on the platform. The latest development comes just over a fortnight after Musk announced last month that he bought the microblogging platform for $44 billion.
As a result of his acquisition, Musk stated that he would make Twitter algorithms open source and improve its policies to better support free speech on the platform. Shortly after Musk’s announcement, reports surfaced suggesting that the billionaire might renegotiate the deal.
Here are the top 10 things you should know about Elon Musk Twitter deal on hold:
- “Twitter deal on hold temporarily pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts represent less than 5% of users,” Musk tweeted on Friday.
- Twitter has yet to make a public statement on the matter. Elon Musk has also declined to comment on whether he is particularly concerned about Twitter’s stated percentage of spam and fake users.
- In a filing earlier this month, Twitter stated that fake and spam accounts account for less than 5% of all users on its platform.
- Elon Musk confirmed in April that he would buy Twitter for $44 billion. The transaction will result in the San Francisco, California-based company becoming a privately held company.
- Twitter shareholders were set to receive $54.20 in cash for each share they held upon closing the proposed transaction, according to the terms of the agreement, the company said in a public statement announcing the deal last month.
- Musk was said to have received over $7 billion in funding for his $44 billion deal from a group of investors that included Oracle Co-Founder Larry Ellison.
- Investors recently speculated that Musk might not buy Twitter for the agreed-upon price of $44 billion, as the company’s stock dropped to its lowest level since the deal was announced on April 25.
- Prior to the acquisition, Musk disclosed in a regulatory filing that he owned 9.2 percent of Twitter.
- Musk recently stated that once the acquisition is completed, he will lift Twitter’s ban on former US President Donald Trump. During a speech at the Financial Times Future of the Car conference, he called the decision “morally wrong and flat-out stupid.” Musk also received backing from US Republicans — Trump’s political party — for the acquisition, though Democrats were dissatisfied with the deal.
- The US Federal Trade Commission recently conducted an antitrust investigation into Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter (FTC). The Open Markets Institute recently demanded that the transaction be halted, claiming that it would give the world’s richest man “direct control over one of the world’s most important platforms for public communications and debate.”