Reuters reported yesterday (7 May) that potential investors Elon Musk had lined up to reduce his own financial burden for buying Twitter are now skittish after the billionaire’s latest attempt to undermine the $44 billion deal.

Musk’s law firm sent a letter to Twitter two days ago, along with filing the same letter with the Securities and Exchange Commission, that threatened he would walk away if the social media company didn’t provide him with more information about Twitter’s claim that bots or spam accounts comprise less than 5 per cent of its user base.

There has been speculation that Musk is criticising the social media company as part of an attempt to renegotiate the price. If he does walk away, he could face a lawsuit for breach of contract.

Reuters reported Musk planned to pay $33.5 billion in cash to fund the deal while using debt financing to cover the rest.

While Musk, the co-founder and CEO of Tesla, is often cited as the richest person in the world with a net worth of $218 billion, according to Forbes, his wealth is largely tied to his Tesla shares, Reuters stated.

The online news website, citing unnamed sources, stated Musk was in talks to arrange $2 billion to $3 billion in preferred equity financing from a group of private equity firms led by Apollo Global Management that would have further reduced his cash contributions.

A source told Reuters that the financing conversations were on hold until there was more clarity on the deal.

While Musk is a prolific user of Twitter, he hadn’t tweeted about the possible snag in his financing arrangements as of yesterday afternoon.