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Musk paused his Twitter takeover until he gets details on spam bots

One of Musk's biggest goals for Twitter is to remove spam bots entirely from the platform.

Elon Musk

Elon Musk's Twitter deal is on hold.

Photo: Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images

Elon Musk paused his $44 billion Twitter takeover until he gets more information on the number of spam and fake accounts on the platform, he tweeted Friday.

In the tweet, Musk linked to a Reuters article that says Twitter estimates fewer than 5% of its monetizable daily active users are spam or fake accounts. It's unclear what additional details Musk wants on the topic. One of his biggest goals for Twitter is to remove spam bots entirely from the platform.

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

But don't worry, Musk still wants to buy Twitter. He tweeted a couple hours later that he's "still committed to the acquisition."

Twitter's stock plunged almost 18% in pre-market trading on the news. The company did not immediately return a request for comment.

Sarah Roach

Sarah (Sarahroach_) writes for Source Code at Protocol. She's based in Boston and can be reached at sroach@protocol.com

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