Tech company Tesla billionaire Elon Musk announced Tuesday that he was taking a temporary break from Twitter, leaving his 44.5 million followers guessing his reasons for the sudden move.

The decision by Musk comes after his posts on Twitter fueled a frenzy in the US stock market sending share prices of several companies spiraling.

“Off Twitter for a while,” tweeted the founder of Tesla and SpaceX but did not explain why.

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Last week, his tweet supported retail investors on Reddit who planned buy shares in the struggling games firm Gamestop, pushing its share price up by more than 680 per cent, according to a report by CNN.

His Twitter post a couple of hours later expressing his love for retail website Etsy also pushed the company's share price up by up to 8 per cent, according to a report by CNBC.

Musk’s tweets have been moving markets in recent weeks, including Friday when he changed his Twitter profile to ‘#bitcoin’, causing Bitcoin’s price to rise steeply by 20 per cent temporarily.

Musk has also run into legal issues with his tweets on the social media platform.

He was forced to resign as Tesla board chair in 2018 after US Securities and Exchange Commission accused him of misleading investors by tweeting about Tesla possibly withdrawing from the stock exchange.

Last month, Musk overtook Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to become the world's wealthiest person, with an estimated fortune of $185 billion following a mega surge in Tesla's share price in 2020.