The billionaire founder of Tesla Inc.,Elon Musk, on Friday, said he is putting a temporary halt on his much-anticipated deal to buy Twitter.
“Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users,” he wrote on Twitter.
Musk, the world’s richest man had made the eradication of spam accounts and bots one of the centerpieces of his proposed $44 billion takeover of Twitter.
When the deal was announced in late April, he said he wanted to make Twitter “better than ever by defeating the spam bots and authenticating all humans.”
But his potential stewardship of the social media platform has hit several bumps since then.
On Wednesday, Musk said he would be open to lifting a ban imposed on former President Donald Trump, following the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Activist groups had called on advertisers to boycott the platform if Musk opened the gates to abusive and misinformative posts.
Friday’s announcement saw Twitter’s shares drop by 20 per cent in early electronic trading before Wall Street opened.
(AFP)
