Elon Musk says Twitter deal ‘temporarily on hold’

LONDON –

Elon Musk saidFriday, he said that the planned purchase of Twitter worth US$44billion is temporarily on hold pending further details on spamming and fake accounts.

The Tesla billionaire announced his plans to tweet, adding another wrinkle to internal turmoil.

It was not clear if the fake account issue could have a negative impact on the Twitter deal. Both Tesla and Twitter stock went in sharply opposite directions. Tesla fell 18% while Twitter’s stock plummeted, and Tesla, which Musk suggested Musk used to fund the Twitter deal, rose 5%.

Musk’s legal problems and the possibility of Twitter acquiring Musk have been factors that investors had to consider.

Twitter saidThursday’s announcement by the company was that it will stop all hiring except for those in business-critical roles. It also stated that it was discontinuing all hiring except for business critical roles. saidA statement said that “we are cutting back on non labor costs to ensure that we are being responsible, efficient.”

Parag Agrawal, CEO, sent a memo to employees. It was confirmed by Twitter. saidThe company has yet to achieve its revenue and growth milestones since it began to invest aggressively to increase its user base and revenue.