(CelebrityAccess) — Elon Musk’s 44 billion dollar bid to take over Twitter has been temporarily placed on hold as he seeks additional information about the use of bots on the social media platform.
Musk revealed the news on Friday in an early morning tweet:
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
In a followup tweet, Musk confirmed that he was still committed to the deal but did not provide additional details.
Since the beginning of May, and reflecting broad market declines, Twitter has lost 20% of its market cap, dropping from $49.14 on May 2nd to 40.27 at the close of trading on Friday. That’s far below the premium of the $54.20 that Musk agreed to pay to acquire Twitter on April 27.
Additionally, the proposed deal is running into regulatory headwinds as well. According to The Information, Musk is facing scrutiny from the SEC over his alleged failure to comply with disclosure rules related to a 9% stake in Twitter he already held.
Additionally, Bloomberg reported that the Federal Trade Commission is reviewing the proposed acquisition but declined to discuss the matter with a spokesperson telling CNBC that the FTC does not comment on open investigations.
