Elon Musk says US$44bil Twitter deal on hold over fake account data

Twitter shares initially fell more than 20% in premarket trading, but after Musk, the chief executive of electric car market Tesla Inc TSLA.O, sent a second tweet saying he remained committed to the deal, they regained some ground.The shares were down 9.6% to $40.71 in trading on Friday, a steep discount to the $54.20 per share acquisition price.

Elon Musk tweeted on Friday that his $44-billion cash deal for Twitter Inc TWTR.N was "temporarily on hold" while he waits for the social media company to provide data on the proportion of its fake accounts.

Twitter shares initially fell more than 20% in premarket trading, but after Musk, the chief executive of electric car market Tesla Inc TSLA.O, sent a second tweet saying he remained committed to the deal, they regained some ground.