PALO ALTO, U.S. -- A majority of Twitter's shareholders voted in favor of tech billionaire Elon Musk's $44 billion bid to take the company private, a deal he now seeks to abandon, according to a preliminary result announced by the U.S. social media company Tuesday.

Musk has informed Twitter he will not proceed with the acquisition, claiming he was misled by the company over the number of spam accounts on the platform and was not notified of a settlement Twitter paid to its former chief security officer.