Elon Musk tweeted that Twitter deal is temporarily on hold

Elon Musk tweeted early Friday that his $44 billion bid to buy Twitter was temporarily on hold as he examined the number of spam accounts on the site, sending the company’s stock on a steep slide in premarket trading.

“Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users,” he tweeted, linking to a Reuters article from last week citing a Twitter filing.

Roughly two hours later, he added: “Still committed to acquisition.”

It was not immediately clear how the Tesla CEO would pause the deal or how serious the threat was. Musk is prone to brash statements on Twitter, something that has drawn scrutiny by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The terms of the deal require a $1 billion breakup fee.

Musk and Twitter did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Before the tweet, Musk already was seeking additional investors in his $44 billion bid for Twitter as a market downturn puts pressure on his financing.