Elon Musk "temporarily" suspends the purchase of Twitter pending a report on fake accounts on the social network

By Jason Abbruzzese —

There is a new twist in the agreement on the purchase of Twitter.

Billionaire Elon Musk said early Friday that his plan to buy the social media company was "temporarily on hold" until more details were learned about a report of fake accounts on the platform.

It was not immediately clear, based on Musk's post on the social network, if any official action had been taken to stop the acquisition, which was agreed in late April with a price tag of about $44 billion.

Twitter's value, calculated based on its share price, has fallen in recent weeks along with the general decline in technology stocks.

Twitter was worth about $35 billion as of Friday morning.

Right after Musk's tweet, Twitter's stock price plummeted more than 18%.

Musk did not immediately respond to questions via Twitter about steps taken to stop the deal.

Musk's tweet included a link to a May 2 Reuters article about Twitter's public archives, in which the company said fake or spam accounts only accounted for 5% of its user base.

Musk has made fighting fake accounts a big part of his reasoning for buying the company.

Twitter currently has about 229 million users.