Twitter pushes Elon Musk to complete $44bn deal as he calls for SEC investigation

Twitter has consistently said since 2014 that it estimates fewer than 5pc of its 229m daily users are fake accounts.

Legal experts said Mr Musk had little leeway to walk away from the deal, and that doing so could invite a challenge from Twitter seeking to force him to pay damages. However, the company could accept a takeover at a lower price instead of fighting a lengthy battle.

John Coffee, of the Centre on Corporate Governance at Columbia Law School in New York, said: “They may get damages. But they would have a year of uncertainty. And they would lose employees in that time.”

On Monday, Mr Agrawal said the company suspends over half a million spam accounts daily, and that they made up “well under” 5pc of users, but that the company could not share private information on how it calculates this.

A lengthy US filing on Tuesday by Twitter revealed that Mr Musk had discussed the prospect of a takeover with executives as early as March, before it emerged that he had taken a 9pc stake in the company. He had also said he could instead start a rival to the social network.

The filing also revealed that Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey had said that the company would be better off if it were to go private.