While you were asleep: Musk broadsides Twitter yet again, is he trying to get out of the sale?

Elon Musk looks to be getting a bout of cold feet with his impending marriage to Twitter on the rocks after the billionaire questioned the company’s claim that less than 5% of users on the platform are bots and threatened to pull the $44 billion sale unless the claim could be verified.

But is his latest attack against the bluebird social media network a negotiating tactic to lower the buying price or an excuse to abandon the deal?

Barron’s reports the market is increasingly losing confidence that the Tesla and Space X CEO will buy the company for the agreed-upon $54.20 a share.

Musk could be looking to pay a lower price for Twitter if the public claims surrounding bots cannot be proven or he could look to leverage a position where he can walk away from the deal and pay the $1 billion breakup fee if the deal isn’t completed.

That fee would hardly make a dent in Musk’s net worth, estimated to be over $200 billion, making him the wealthiest man in the world.

Analyst Dan Ives told CNN that there is a “60%+ chance from our view Musk ultimately walks from the deal and pays the breakup fee.”

Meanwhile, the Twitter board, for its part, has unanimously recommended that shareholders approve the deal while seemingly threatening some sort of legal action as the board seeks to rid itself of the company and enforce the deal with Musk.

A statement from the board, released on Tuesday evening, said, “The Board and Mr Musk agreed to a transaction at $54.20 per share. We believe this agreement is in the best interest of all shareholders. We intend to close the transaction and enforce the merger agreement.”

In the currency markets, the rand closed 1.7% stronger against the dollar as the US currency fell sharply against euro and pound.

“The pound was boosted by good employment data, which opens the way for the BOE to hike rates further, while reasonably hawkish comments from the ECB helped the euro,” says TreasuryONE.

The rand is trading marginally softer at R15.95/$ this morning on a slight recovery in the dollar.

“Traders will keep a close eye on today’s local CPI data, with economists expecting inflation to have increased by 0.6% MoM and by 5.9% YoY. The market is expecting the SARB to hike rates by 50bps at tomorrow’s MPC meeting,” comments TreasuryONE.

It was a quiet day for commodities yesterday with gold softening slightly, but both platinum and palladium ended marginally stronger.

This morning gold is trading at $1,810, platinum at $951, and palladium at $2,038. Brent is trading firmer at $112.40 a barrel, having closed over 2.0% weaker yesterday.