Elon Musk says he's put the blockbuster Twitter deal on pause over fake accounts

elon musk
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. (Hannibal Hanschke/Pool Photo via AP, File)

Elon Musk said he’s putting his $44 billion takeover of Twitter “temporarily on hold,” saying that he wants more details about how many of the social platform’s accounts are bogus or spam.

The Tesla and SpaceX mogul said he needs to make sure the fake accounts “do indeed represent less than 5%” of Twitter’s users, as the company has estimated.

Musk tweeted about putting the massive deal on hold early Friday, sharing a recent Reuters news story about the takeover.