Twitter’s stock plunged over 19 percent after Elon Musk tweeted that the deal to buy the social media giant was temporarily on hold pending details supporting the calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5 percent of users. On the other hand, Tesla shot up 5 percent on the US futures in pre-market trade.

According to a Reuters report, Twitter had earlier this month estimated that false or spam accounts represented fewer than 5 percent of its monetizable daily active users during the first quarter when it recorded 229 million users who were served advertising.

Musk, a self-proclaimed free speech absolutist, had said that one of his priorities would be to remove "spam bots" from the 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

Musk announced last month that he intends to buy Twitter for $44 billion. The world's richest person according to a tally by Forbes, on April 14 had presented a "best and final" cash offer of $44 billion to Twitter's board of directors, saying the social media company needs to be taken private to grow and become a platform for free speech.

Musk has been critical of Twitter's moderation policy. He has said he wants Twitter's algorithm to prioritize tweets to be public and was against too much power on the service to corporations that advertise.

Earlier this week, he said he would reverse Twitter's ban on former U.S. President Donald Trump when he buys the social media platform, signaling his intention to cut moderation of the site.

Twitter has been in turmoil after the announcement and key personnel have left the social media giant recently. A Twitter general manager, Kayvon Beykpour, is leaving after 7 years. In a series of tweets Thursday, Beykpour said CEO Parag Agrawal asked me to leave after letting me know that he wants to take the team in a different direction.

Meanwhile, shares of Tesla have been hammered after the Twitter acquisition announcement by Musk. The electric vehicle company's stock is down almost 16 percent so far this week to $728.

With inputs from Reuters

(Edited by : Abhishek Jha)

First Published:May 13, 2022 3:37 PM IST