In the latest bomb in the Twitter takeover drama, Elon Musk tweeted this morning that his $44 billion bid was “temporarily on hold” until he could verify the company’s estimate that spam and fake accounts on its platform made up less than 5 percent of total users (that number is not new). About two hours later, Musk tweeted that he was still “committed” to the acquisition. Twitter shares had already fallen by 20 percent in premarket trading, while Tesla shares had jumped by 6 percent.
The tweets fed into swirling speculation that Musk may back out of the deal, as shares of Tesla, Musk’s main source of personal income, have tumbled. Musk had a covert meeting at
