Elon Musk and Twitter: a timeline of the $44bn deal that threatens to crumble

His move is the most concrete to suggest he may be reneging on his deal to purchase the social media platform and is the latest in a long and winding saga between the Tesla executive and the social media platform.

So, how did we get here?

Some signs pointed to Musk moving forward with the deal. On 25 May, filings revealed he had secured additional funding for the purchase that would allow him to complete the purchase while incurring minimal personal debt. Those filings revealed he has increased his personal funding of the purchase from $27.3bn to $33.5bn and secured an additional $6.25bn in equity financing.

But tides changed just weeks later when on Monday his lawyers wrote to Twitter accusing it of refusing to provide sufficient information about the number of false users on the service after Musk requested additional numbers on 9 May. It said information provided on 1 June was insufficient.