Musk says $44-billion Twitter deal temporarily on hold

　　div classBodysc17zpet90 cdBBJodivpReuters Elon Musk said on Friday his 44billion deal for Twitter Inc was temporarily on hold, citing pending details on spam and fake accounts. p

　　p“Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spamfake accounts do indeed represent less than 5 of users,” Musk said in a tweet.pdivdivdiv classBodysc17zpet90 cdBBJodiv

　　pShares of the social media company fell 20 in premarket trading. Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment. p

　　pThe company had earlier this month estimated that false or spam accounts represented fewer than 5 of its monetizable daily active users during the first quarter.p

　　pIt also said it faced several risks until the deal with Musk is closed, including whether advertisers would continue to spend on Twitter. p

　　pMusk, the worlds richest man and the chief executive of Tesla Inc, had said that one of his priorities would be to remove “spam bots” from the platform.p

　　p Reporting by Nivedita Balu in Bengaluru Editing by Arun Koyyurp

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