Elon Musk Reverses and Offers to Buy Twitter at Original $44 Billion Price Tag

Billionaire Elon Musk on Tuesday had a change of heart and offered to buy Twitter for his initially proposed price of $44 billion, The Associated Press reports.

Musk, in the middle of a legal battle with Twitter, sent a letter to the company offering to buy it out for his original proposal of $54.20 per share.

Twitter said it intends to close the deal at $54.20 per share in response to the letter.

Twitter shares soared 22% on Tuesday, rising to $52.

The reversal came after Twitter sued Musk to force the sale. Musk sought to back out of the purchase after alleging that the platform had more bots than it reported.

But Musk waived his right to due diligence when he made the offer and shareholders already approved the sale.

What about the lawsuit?:

Musk’s offer appears to be contingent on Twitter dropping the lawsuit but the company stopped short of vowing to do so.

“I don’t think Twitter will give up its trial date on just Musk’s word — it’s going to need more certainty about closing,” Andrew Jennings, a professor at Brooklyn Law School, told the AP.

Columbia Law Professor Eric Talley argued that Musk was likely motivated by his upcoming deposition in the case, which was “not going to be pleasant.”

“On the legal merits, his case didn’t look that strong,” Talley said. “It kind of seemed like a pretty simple buyer’s remorse case.”

What happens to Twitter?:

Musk has teased changes to the social network and on Tuesday tweeted that buying Twitter is an “accelerant to creating X, the everything app.”

“The deal will solve some of the short-term uncertainty at the company, but Twitter is essentially in the same place it was in April,” Jasmine Enberg, an analyst with Insider Intelligence, told the AP. “There is still plenty of uncertainty around what Musk intends to do with Twitter, as well as the future of a company with a leader who has wavered in his commitment to buying it. And if we’ve learned anything from this saga, it’s that Musk is unpredictable and that it isn’t over yet.”

 

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