Elon Musk has announced that his deal to buy Twitter (TWTR) for $44 billion U.S. and take the
company private is on hold until he receives more information about how many fake accounts
there are on the social media platform.
Twitter’s stock plummeted 18% following the announcement.
Tesla chief executive officer (CEO) Musk announced last month that he intends to buy Twitter
for $44 billion U.S. and he’s previously tweeted that one of his main priorities would be to
remove “spam bots” and fake accounts from the platform.
Twitter estimated in a filing earlier this month that fewer than 5% of its monetizable daily active
users during the first quarter were bots or spam accounts.
Even before Friday’s announcement, the company’s market value had fallen to $9 billion U.S.,
beneath the offer price due to concerns about the deal.
Earlier this week, Twitter said that it is undertaking a hiring freeze and massive cost cutting
program ahead of its potential takeover by Musk, who is the world’s richest person.
Twitter said it won’t hire new employees and may rescind offers already out to candidates, and
pull back on costs such as travel, consulting and marketing as it waits to find out if Musk’s offer
for the company is approved by regulators.
Earlier this week, Musk warned that the deal could still fall apart.
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