Adding another twist to the ongoing $ 44 billion buyout saga, Elon Musk said on Tuesday his $44-billion offer would not move forward until Twitter Inc. shows proof that spam bots account for less than five percent of its total users, hours after suggesting he could seek a lower price for the company.

“My offer was based on Twitter’s SEC filings being accurate. Yesterday, Twitter’s CEO publicly refused to show proof of <5% (spam accounts). This deal cannot move forward until he does,” Musk said in a tweet.

Hours later, Twitter said it was committed to completing the deal at the agreed price and terms “as promptly as practicable”, Reuters has reported.

After putting his offer on hold last week pending information on spam accounts, Musk said he suspected they account for at least 20 percent of users compared with Twitter’s official estimate of 5 percent.

“You can’t pay the same price for something that is much worse than they claimed,” he said on Monday at the All-In Summit 2022 conference in Miami.

Asked if the deal is viable at a different price, Musk said, “I mean, it is not out of the question. The more questions I ask, the more my concerns grow.”

“They claim that they have got this complex methodology that only they can understand… It cannot be some deep mystery that is, like, more complex than the human soul or something like that,” he said.

Twitter Chief Executive Parag Agrawal tweeted on Monday that internal estimates of spam accounts on the social media platform for the last four quarters were “well under 5%,” responding to Musk’s criticism of the company’s handling of phony accounts.

Musk has called for tests of random samples of Twitter users to identify bots. He said, “there is some chance it might be over 90% of daily active users.”