Musk Puts $44B Twitter Deal on Temporary 'Hold'

Elon Musk’s $44 billion deal to buy Twitter is “temporarily on hold” until he gets more detail supporting the estimate that spam and fake accounts make up less than 5% of users, the Tesla CEO tweeted Friday. “Still committed to acquisition,” he added about two hours later. Twitter shares closed 9.7% lower Friday at $40.72, recording their lowest mark since Musk announced plans to become the platform’s largest individual shareholder in April. Abandoning the deal carries the potential for a $1 billion break-up fee. Musk earlier in the week said he would reinstate former President Donald Trump, whose account was suspended in response to his activity related to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot (see 2204120056). “I saw President Trump said he wasn’t interested” in rejoining the platform “so I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, told us Thursday. “I’m opposed to the social media companies censoring free speech so good for” Musk. “This is such an uninteresting conversation,” Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, said of the potential Trump reinstatement. The company didn't comment.