All of this comes after months of fighting between Musk and Twitter, with the billionaire claiming that the true number of bots on the social network is far higher than estimated.
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Elon Musk will proceed with a planned takeover of Twitter after all.
Tesla's CEO is willing to pay $54.20 per share — matching the original offer made earlier this year.
The proposal was made by letter, according to people familiar with the matter.
Shares in Twitter spiked on Wall Street — rallying from $42.95 to $47.93 in eight minutes, and trading was temporarily halted.
All of this comes after months of fighting between Musk and Twitter, with the billionaire claiming that the true number of bots on the social network is far higher than estimated.
Musk had tried to get out of the deal — and both sides were readying themselves for a dramatic showdown at the Delaware Court of Chancery.
Ahead of the legal fight, a huge dossier of Musk's texts became public when they were included in court filings — documenting his correspondence with the likes of Parag Agrawal and Jack Dorsey.
At this early stage, it's unclear what has led to Musk's change of heart. At the time his takeover was confirmed, he had vowed to "defeat the spam bots or die trying" — and champion freedom of speech on the social network.
Musk was due to be deposed later this week, and the trial was due to begin later this month — with Twitter determined to force the entrepreneur to complete the deal.
Reacting to the news, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said:
"This is a clear sign that Musk recognized heading into Delaware Court that the chances of winning versus the Twitter board was highly unlikely and this $44 billion deal was going to be completed one way or another. Being forced to do the deal after a long and ugly court battle in Delaware was not an ideal scenario and instead accepting this path and moving forward with the deal will save a massive legal headache."
Musk's legal team had recently suffered setbacks in the case. He had been seeking further information about how Twitter measured human users — but last Friday, Judge Kathaleen McCormick ruled that the tech giant had "done enough" in handing over documents.
