Elon Musk agrees to buy Twitter at original $44 billion price

Elon Musk has agreed to buy Twitter for his original offer price of $54.20 per share. The offer puts an end to the 6-month saga that was heading for a contentious courtroom battle.

According to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Musk’s legal team said they “intend to proceed to closing of the transaction” agreed upon on April 25, which totaled around $44 billion. Twitter responded in a statement that it also intends to close the deal with Musk.

Twitter issued this statement about today's news: We received the letter from the Musk parties which they have filed with the SEC. The intention of the Company is to close the transaction at $54.20 per share.

— Twitter Investor Relations (@TwitterIR) October 4, 2022

Bloomberg was first to report the news Tuesday, sending shares in the company spiking as much as 18% before trading was halted at $47.93 a share. When trading resumed with 20 minutes left in the trading day, the stock price soared to $52.02 by market close, up 22.3% on the day.

Shares in the company had traded as high as $51.70 this year on news of a Musk takeover and sank as low as $32.65 around the time Musk announced he was backing out.

Musk made the original offer to buy Twitter in April, but shortly after began sowing doubt in the deal, accusing Twitter of hiding the true number of bots on the platform. The company sued him after the billionaire officially backed out of his deal in July.

Musk’s team hoped the revelation of similar claims made by a Twitter whistleblower would strengthen his case. However, as pre-trial hearings were heating up, reports say Musk’s legal team was starting to doubt their ability to win in court. Musk was scheduled to answer questions about the deal later this week, according to a court filing.

The trial was scheduled for Oct. 17 but it appears Musk and Twitter have now averted the showdown. Shareholders had already previously approved Musk’s offer, meaning it is extremely likely the outspoken CEO will soon have a new company to call his own.

Musk’s original, unsolicited bid for the company came after it was disclosed that he took a 9.2% stake in Twitter. Along with his belief that the platform needed to be taken private to make necessary changes, Musk at the time vowed to “defeat the spam bots or die trying,” make the Twitter algorithm open source and he seemed inclined to add an edit button to tweets.