Elon Musk says he is ‘still committed’ to buying Twitter amid speculation deal could break down

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

Elon Musk says he is “still committed” to buying Twitter amid speculation over the future of the deal.

“Still committed to acquisition,” he wrote in a short update.

That came about two hours after Mr Musk said he was pausing the deal until he had gathered more information about the spam and fake accounts on the platform.

“Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users,” he had written in an update on Thursday morning. He gave no further information on his thinking.

Even before Mr Musk’s tweets, speculation had begin to grow that he could consider pulling out of the deal. Since it was announced, Twitter’s share price has fallen significantly, well below the $54.20 price that Mr Musk offered.

He is still able to pull out of the deal, which may not complete for months, though would have to pay $1 billion to Twitter if he decided to do so.

The announcement that the takeover was now “on hold” led to yet more suggestions that Mr Musk could be looking for a way out of the deal. Analysts noted that the tweet itself had caused yet more falls in the share price – it dropped more than 20 per cent in pre-market trading – pushing it even further from the price Mr Musk has offered.

There have also been questions about Mr Musk’s financing for the deal, some of which is depends on his stock in Tesla shares, which have also been losing value. Reports have suggested that Mr Musk is looking for a new financing structure that would avoid using those shares.

After two hours of speculation, Mr Musk issued the latest short tweet, though again gave no more detail on the status of the deal or what had led it to be postponed.