Billionaire Elon Musk is set to re-commit to his original offer of taking Twitter private, according to reports citing people familiar with the matter, in a dramatic U-turn for the world’s richest man.
Musk is tipped to be proceeding with the original terms of his deal in which he would acquire shares at $54.20 each, valuing the firm at $44 billion.
Twitter shares soared 12.67% on the news before trading the stock was halted. News of the deal was reported by Bloomberg earlier.
Twitter has been suing billionaire Elon Musk over his abandoned takeover of the company in a bid to force him to close the deal. The Tesla boss had said he was walking away from the deal over concerns about the the number of fake and spam accounts on the Twitter platform.
Twitter has reaffirmed its view that these accounts represent less than 5% of overall users. In a letter to the US securities regulator in June, the company said: “Twitter believes that it already adequately discloses the methodology that it uses in calculating these figures.”
The social media giant has filed a 62-pegal lawsuit at a Delaware court after hiring hotshot New York law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to hold him to the original terms of his offer of $54.20 a share.
“Musk refuses to honor his obligations to Twitter and its stockholders because the deal he signed no longer serves his personal interests,” the court filing says.
“Musk apparently believes that he…is free to change his mind, trash the company, disrupt its operations, destroy stockholder value, and walk away.”
