Elon Musk had earlier insisted that in order to close out his $44 billion takeover of Twitter, the social media company would have to deal with its bot problem, amongst a host of other issues. On Friday, Musk stated in a filing that he wishes to end the takeover agreement.

The founder of SpaceX, told Bloomberg at the Qatar Economic Forum in Doha that the number of fake, spam and bot accounts was “still a very significant matter.” Earlier this year in April, Musk cut a deal to acquire the social media giant at $52.40 a share, but has repeatedly made statements questioning the company’s transparency about fake accounts. This has given way to speculation that the tech-mogul wants to either cut costs or even abandon the deal.

Also Read: SpaceX fires employees critical of ‘free speech absolutist’ Elon Musk

As it stands, Musk has managed to raise $13 billion in debt financing with the help of some banks. Key lenders include Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, and Barclays.

At the event, the SpaceX founder insisted that he would be responsible for “driving the product” much like he does at his other companies, but had no plans to become the chief executive officer, at least for the time being. 

Musk said that he’d like to get “80% of North America” or even “half the world” on Twitter in some form or the other, and that it had to be “appealing to people.”

The China problem

Even though Twitter has been banned in China, the 50-year-old doesn’t see it as a hurdle if he acquires the company. Musk, in fact, sees China as a growing market for his Tesla electric vehicles and as a key base of production. It is well-known that despite the ban, China uses bot and spam accounts to spread its message outside its borders. So much so that shortly after Musk’s announcement to buy Twitter, the founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos reportedly asked, “Did the Chinese government just gain a bit of leverage over the town square?”