Indeed, agreed transactions cannot be legally put on hold. Twitter’s lawyers are still working with Musk’s team to complete the deal, said one person familiar with the situation. The billionaire himself said he was still “committed to the acquisition”.

Some analysts have interpreted Musk’s manoeuvre as an attempt to force Twitter back to the negotiating table to get a cheaper deal as tech stocks cool, or to find a way to pull out.

“Unless Twitter grossly misreported data — which would be a serious security fraud — this might be a way to either negotiate a lower price or walk away,” said Stefano Bonini, a corporate governance expert at Stevens Institute of Technology. “At any rate this shows that we are still quite far from this transaction happening for real.”