Twitter shares stop trading after reports of Elon Musk deal going ahead
Claire Reid
Featured Image Credit: Apex MediaWire / Vincent Mancuso / Alamy Stock Photo
Trading of Twitter shares have been paused after a report has claimed Elon Musk is set to do another U-turn and buy the social media platform.
Back in April, the Tesla boss made a bid to buy the social media platform for $44 billion, which was 38 percent more than what it was valued at at the time.
But in July, Musk changed his mind and attempted to back out of the deal, claiming that the number of bots on the site was higher than Twitter had claimed.
Twitter denied the claims made by Musk and launched a legal battle against him, which was set to see both parties in court on 17 October.
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However, a report in Bloomberg today claims he is now offering to buy Twitter at his original offer price of $54.20 a share.
Shares in Twitter had been up by as much as 13 percent before trading was suspended.
The Bloomberg report claimed Musk had made his proposal to buy the company in a letter.
When announcing his original offer to buy Twitter, Musk vowed to make the platform ‘better than ever’, while also saying he’d crack down on bots.
This marks a sharp u-turn for Musk, who previously was at loggerheads with Twitter's lawyers.
Musk backtracked on his initial deal after claiming there had been more bot accounts that he was told by the company.
In response, Twitter filed a lawsuit in July, in which the company claimed: “Musk entered into a binding merger agreement with Twitter, promising to use his best efforts to get the deal done.
“Now, less than three months later, Musk refuses to honour his obligations to Twitter and its stockholders because the deal he signed no longer serves his personal interests.”
It went on: "Having mounted a public spectacle to put Twitter in play, and having proposed and then signed a seller-friendly merger agreement, Musk apparently believes that he — unlike every other party subject to Delaware contract law — is free to change his mind, trash the company, disrupt its operations, destroy stockholder value, and walk away.
"This repudiation follows a long list of material contractual breaches by Musk that have cast a pall over Twitter and its business."
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