In a stunning post, Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Friday said that he has put the $44 billion Twitter deal temporarily on hold till he gets to know how many fake or spam accounts are present on the micro-blogging platform.

"Twitter deals temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5 percent of users," Musk said in a tweet to his over 92 million followers.

Twitter's share price plunged 19 percent on the news of the deal being put on hold.

Musk posted a link to an earlier Reuters story that reported that Twitter estimates spam, and fake accounts comprise less than 5 percent of users.

Twitter estimated in a filing earlier this week that false or spam accounts represented fewer than 5 percent of its monetizable daily active users during the first quarter.

The micro-blogging platform had 229 million users in the first quarter.

Musk has signed a $44 billion deal to take over Twitter, of which he will pay $21 billion from his pocket while the rest will come as a loan from a consortium of banks. (AA/IANS)