Elon Says Twitter Deal On Hold: What You Should Know

After running the hard mile to mobilize finances for his Twitter Inc. TWTR buy, Elon Musk said early Friday the deal is on hold.

What Happened: Musk tweeted that the deal is temporarily on hold, and the reason apparently is the discord over spam/fake accounts calculation.

"Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users," the Tesla Inc. TSLA CEO tweeted.

Musk's announcement comes as a quote tweet of a Reuters article dated May 2 that said Twitter estimates false or spam accounts to make up less than 5% of its monetizable daily active users during the quarter.

Related Link: This Is What Elon Musk Plans to Accomplish With Twitter If He Takes The Platform Private

Why It's Important: For the unversed, Musk in late April offered $54.20 per share to take Twitter private after building up a stake in the social media platform. Although holding off a bit by announcing a poison pill, Twitter finally agreed to be taken over by the Tesla chief.

Musk has since arranged a range of financing partners, including corporate executives, investment banks, and private-equity firms, to fund the acquisition.

The billionaire suggested his primary motive to take over Twitter is to make it a platform for free speech. He has also raised the issue of the proliferation of spam/fake accounts.

Twitter shares were down about 25% to $34.15 in premarket trading on Friday, according to Benzinga Pro data. Meanwhile, Tesla was advancing 6.20% to $771.46.