Twitter boss responds to Musk doubts on fake accounts

The head of Twitter has hit back after billionaire Elon Musk said his $44bn deal to buy the platform was "on hold" while he sought more details about fake accounts.

Chief executive Parag Agrawal said he had "confidence" in the firm's claims that less than 5% of users are spam.

He said the firm suspended roughly 500,000 suspect accounts daily.

Analysts have speculated that Mr Musk may be looking for ways to renegotiate the price of the deal or walk away.

Mr Agrawal said the company used a combination of public and private data to determine which accounts were real, reviewing random samples every few months. The margins of error are well within its estimate of spam accounts being less than 5%, he said.

He said the firm had shared an "overview" of its process with Mr Musk last week.

"We... look forward to continuing the conversation with him, and all of you," he said,

On Friday, Mr Musk said he had put the deal on hold pending information "supporting [the] calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users".

He added later that he was "still committed to [the] acquisition".