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Elon Musk says Twitter deal is 'temporarily on hold' but he's 'still committed'

Billionaire says he needs details on the levels of spam and fake accounts on the social media site.
Written by Steve Ranger, Global News Director

Elon Musk has said that his $44 billion deal to buy Twitter is now "temporarily" on hold.

In a tweet, Musk linked to a story by Reuters, which said that Twitter had estimated that fake or spam accounts accounted for fewer than 5% of its monetizable daily active users during the first quarter.

Musk noted that "Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users."

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In a follow-up tweet, however, the billionaire said: "Still committed to acquisition."

In late April Twitter's board of directors – after initially resisting the deal – said it had accepted Musk's offer to buy the company for $54.20 per share, giving it a valuation of about $44 billion.

Since revealing his acquisition plans, Musk has tweeted a number of suggestions about the social media site, noting recently that "Twitter will always be free for casual users, but maybe a slight cost for commercial/government users."

He has also said: "Twitter DMs should have end to end encryption like Signal, so no one can spy on or hack your messages," and also said that former US President Donald Trump – currently banned from Twitter – should be allowed back.

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