Twitter shares were halted after shares surged amid reports that Elon Musk would press ahead with a $44 billion deal to buy the company after months of legal battles.
Musk offered to buy the company in San Francisco for $54.20. Shares jumped nearly 13% to $47.95 before trading ended.
Bloomberg News reported Tuesday that Musk made the offer in a letter on Twitter, according to people familiar with the matter who were not identified.
Musk had been trying to walk away from the deal for months after signing on to buy the social media platform in April. Shareholders have already approved the sale.
Musk argued that Twitter was understating the number of fake accounts on its platform, and Twitter sued when Musk announced the deal was off.
Neither Twitter nor Musk’s lawyers responded to messages seeking comment on Tuesday.
The trial to force Musk to buy Twitter is scheduled to begin in Delaware Chancery Court on October 17.
Musk’s arguments for rejecting the deal were largely based on claims that Twitter had misrepresented how it measured the size of “spambot” accounts, which are useless to advertisers.
But most legal experts believed he had a hard time convincing Chancellor Kathleen St. Jude McCormick, the presiding judge, that something had changed since the April merger agreement to warrant canceling the deal.
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