Elon Musk says Twitter deal is on hold

Elon Musk says his plan to buy Twitter is on a temporary hold.

This comes weeks after news of the $44 billion acquisition was revealed.

Musk tweeted that he wanted to pinpoint the number of spam and fake accounts on the social media platform.

Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of usershttps://t.co/Y2t0QMuuyn

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 13, 2022

The Tesla CEO has been vocal about his desire to clean up Twitter spam bot accounts that mimic real people.

Twitter has disclosed that its bot estimates might be low for at least two years, leading some analysts to believe Musk could be raising the issue as a way to back out of the deal.

Musk’s tweet comes a day after the social media company fired two of its top managers.

Twitter says the company is pausing most hiring, except for critical roles, and is “pulling back on non-labor costs to ensure we are being responsible and efficient.”