CNN —
Twitter stock has been halted twice, the second time due to pending news, and is up around 13% as of Tuesday midday after reports that Elon Musk has proposed to end his deal to buy the company at the originally agreed price of $54.20 per continue share.
Bloomberg and the Washington Post reported Tuesday that Musk, citing people familiar with the negotiations, sent a letter to Twitter suggesting the deal go through as originally signed.
Musk and Twitter officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The news comes as the two sides prepared to go to court in two weeks over Musk’s attempt to back out of the $44 billion acquisition agreement that Twitter had sued him for completing. Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal was scheduled to be fired by Musk’s lawyers on Monday, and Twitter’s lawyers had planned to fire Musk starting Thursday.
Such an agreement could end months of back-and-forth between Musk and Twitter, which has caused massive uncertainty among employees, investors and users of one of the world’s most influential social media platforms.
According to Josh White, an assistant professor of finance at Vanderbilt University, Twitter’s board would likely agree to stay the litigation to expedite the deal’s completion.
“The very public saga has certainly taken a toll on them and the Twitter staff,” White said. “It is best for all parties to close the deal and have a quick and seamless transition. I suspect it will close quickly.”
The saga began in April when Musk revealed that he had become Twitter’s largest shareholder. Over the next few months, Musk accepted an offer to sit on Twitter’s board of directors and then resigned, threatened a hostile takeover of the company, signed an agreement to buy the company, began raising concerns about bots on the platform, and attempted to to end the agreement, was sued by Twitter to go through with the deal, adding claims from a Twitter whistleblower to his argument.
Musk initially moved to end the deal, citing claims that the company misrepresented the number of spam and fake bot accounts on the platform. Twitter claimed Musk violated the deal and used bots as an excuse to back out of a deal that got him buyers’ remorse after the broader market decline, also hurting Tesla stock and, by extension, Musk’s personal fortune.
Still, many legal experts have said that Twitter has the stronger argument in court, and that Musk would face significant burden if it tried to prove that the company made materially misleading statements in its securities filing or transaction agreement.
The lawsuit was the final hurdle in completing the deal after Twitter shareholders voted to approve the deal last month. The deal was originally supposed to close this month.
With news that the deal could go through, attention could turn back to what Musk’s control could mean for the social media platform.
Musk has previously suggested a number of possible changes to Twitter, the most notable of which could be the return of former President Donald Trump to the platform and the removal of permanent account bans. Musk has also said he wants to make Twitter more open to “free speech” and may change its content moderation policy.