Elon Musk tweeted on Friday that his ongoing $44 billion Twitter deal is 'temporarily on hold', just a day after company CEO Parag Agrawal fired two top executives and announced a hiring freeze.
In his tweet, Musk demanded 'supporting calculation' from Twitter to back up their claim that spam/fake accounts comprise less than 5% of Twitter's userbase. He also added in a tweet later that he was still committed to the acquisition.
Twitter made this claim in a filing earlier this month, just days after Musk tweeted that removing "spam bots" from the platform would be one of his priorities.
The 'spam bots' he talks about refer to automated accounts that pose as real humans to engage in deceptive activities. These bot accounts are seldom used by various entities to drive traffic for or against of various agendas, entities or issues. This is done through several means - spamming likes, comments and retweets, trolling genuine users, or providing disinformation.
Twitter's community guidelines prohibit malicious use of automation to manipulate the platform, and it relies on both user reports and automation to detect such accounts. However, Musk has maintained on several occasions that it is a serious issue, one that he would take on in priority.
Meanwhile, the company has been going through some major upheaval. Company CEO Parag Agrawal sent out a memo on Thursday firing two top level executives - Kayvon Beykpour, a general manager who leads research, design and engineering and co-founder of Periscope, along with Bruce Falck, head of products. He also announced that the company will be "pausing most hiring and backfills, except for business critical roles".
Twitter stocks have not performed well either, tanking further in premarket trade on Friday shortly after Musk tweeted out about the deal being on hold. Its shares are now considerable lower than the $54.20 per share offer made by Musk for the acquisition.
While, Musk did assure later of his commitment to the deal, his tweets have cast ambiguity and uncertainty about how the deal will pan out, along with the very future of the platform and its nearly 300 million users.