Musk Calls Off Deal For Twitter

Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk said on Friday he was terminating his US$44 billion deal for Twitter, saying that the social media company had failed to provide information about fake accounts on the platform.

Shares of Twitter fell 6 percent in extended trading.

In a filing, Musk's lawyers said Twitter had failed or refused to respond to multiple requests for information on fake or spam accounts on the platform, which is fundamental to the company's business performance.

Musk had threatened to halt the deal unless the company showed proof that spam and bot accounts were fewer than 5 percent of users who see advertising on the social media service.

Last month, Twitter allowed Musk access to its "firehose", a repository of raw data on hundreds of millions of daily tweets.

Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment. (Reuters)