Billionaire Elon Musk is proposing to go ahead with his original offer of $44 billion to take Twitter Inc. private, two sources familiar with the matter said on Tuesday, signalling an end to a bitter legal battle that was about to go to trial.
An agreement would put the world’s richest person in charge of one of the most influential media platforms and end months of turbulent litigation that damaged Twitter’s brand and fed Musk’s reputation for erratic behaviour.
Musk, the chief executive of electric car maker Tesla Inc. TSLA-Q, will take over a company he originally committed to buying in April, but soon soured on.
Twitter TWTR-N shares jumped 12.7% to $47.93 before trading was halted for the second time, while Tesla shares rose by about 1.8%.
Bloomberg reported the move earlier, saying Musk made the proposal in a letter to Twitter. It cited people who asked not to be identified discussing confidential information.
Twitter and Musk’s lawyers were not immediately available for requests for comment from Reuters. It could not immediately be ascertained why Musk chose to abandon his fight with Twitter.
The news comes ahead of a highly anticipated faceoff between Musk and Twitter in Delaware’s Court of Chancery on Oct. 17, in which the social media company was set to seek an order directing Musk to close the deal at $54.20 per share, or $44 billion for the entire company.
Musk agreed in April to buy Twitter for $44 billion, but within weeks said the number of bot accounts was much higher than Twitter’s estimate of less than 5% of users. Bots are automated accounts, and their use can lead to overestimations of how many humans are on the service, which is important for advertising rates and the overall value of the service.
Musk, one of Twitter’s most prominent users, claimed in July he could walk away from the deal because Twitter misled him about the number of real users and the security of user data.
Twitter’s legal team on Sept. 27 said that documents obtained from two data scientists employed by Musk showed they estimated the number of fake accounts on the platform at 5.3% and 11%.
“None of these analyses so far as we can tell remotely supported what Mr. Musk told Twitter and told the world in the termination letter,” Twitter lawyer Bradley Wilson told the court.
Musk’s reversal “is a clear sign that Musk recognized heading into Delaware Court that the chances of winning vs. Twitter board was highly unlikely and this $44 billion deal was going to be completed one way or another,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives wrote in a note after the news.
Twitter employees, caught by surprise in the middle of meetings on Tuesday, expressed disbelief in tweets.
“I am sitting on 2023 company wide strategy readouts and I guess we are going to collectively ignore what’s going on,” wrote Rumman Chowdhury, Twitter’s director of machine learning ethics, transparency and accountability.
Another volte-face
A settlement between the two sides would revive fears among Twitter’s users about Musk’s plans for the platform, which has removed prominent politically conservative voices. Supporters of Donald Trump hope that Musk will reactivate the account of the former U.S. president, who was banned after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters.
A renewed commitment to the deal would give Musk, already one of the world’s most prominent and outspoken entrepreneurs, a megaphone for his views. He has used Twitter to stir controversy, including on Monday when he floated a peace plan for Ukraine-Russia war that drew swift condemnation from Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky.
Text messages that came to light during the litigation showed that Musk planned to battle spam by verifying accounts, wanted to shift Twitter away from advertising toward subscriptions and to adopt services such as money transfers.
A settlement at the original price would also allow Musk to finance the transaction without any complications. As per the terms of the deal, the banks and co-investors on the transaction are committed to back the deal on the original terms, but if Musk and Twitter had renegotiated the price, it would have technically allowed the backers to walk away.
Musk has already sold $15.4 billion worth of Tesla shares since agreeing to buy Twitter. He has said he does not plan to sell any more of his stake in Tesla, but some analysts expect him to sell down his stake further to fund the Twitter deal.
Since Twitter has already received shareholder support for the sale to Musk, the deal could close quickly in the coming weeks if the two sides were to settle on the original terms. In June, Twitter said the waiting period for antitrust clearance had expired, indicating that the deal could go forward.