Musk, the world's richest man and founder of automaker Tesla, had made the eradication of spam accounts and bots one of the centrepieces of his proposed $44 billion takeover of Twitter
Tesla boss Elon Musk has said to temporarily halt the Twitter deal. (Credits: Britta Pedersen / POOL / AFP​)
Elon Musk said on Friday he was putting a temporary halt on his much-anticipated deal to buy Twitter, sending shares in the social media giant plunging.
Musk, the world's richest man and founder of automaker Tesla, had made the eradication of spam accounts and bots one of the centerpieces of his proposed $44 billion takeover of Twitter.
When the deal was announced in late April he said he wanted to make Twitter "better than ever" by "defeating the spam bots and authenticating all humans".