Musk says $44-billion Twitter deal on hold

Elon Musk said on Friday his $44-billion acquisition of Twitter Inc was temporarily on hold, citing pending details on spam and fake accounts.

"Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users," he said in a tweet.



Shares of the social media company fell 17% in premarket trading.

Shares of Tesla and Twitter have tumbled this week as investors deal with the fallout and potential legal issues surrounding Tesla CEO Elon Musk and his $44 billion bid to buy the social media platform. Of the two, Musk's electric vehicle company has fared worse, with its stock down almost 16% so far this week to $728. Twitter shares fell 9.5% for the week, closing Thursday at $45.08.

Both stocks have taken a bigger hit than the S&P 500, which is down 4.7% for the week.