Elon Musk back on Twitter buy, the report says

Trading in Twitter stock halted after the stock soared on reports that Elon Musk was going ahead with his $44 billion deal to buy the company after months of legal battles.

Musk offered to buy the San Francisco-based company for $54.20 in April. His reported new offering is the same.

Shares rose nearly 13% to $47.95 on Tuesday before trading on hold after news of the report hit the trading floor.

Bloomberg News reported Tuesday that Musk made his latest proposal in a letter to Twitter, according to people familiar with the case who have not been identified by Bloomberg News.

Musk has been trying to get out of the deal for several months after committing to buying the social media platform in April. But Twitter shareholders have already approved the sale, and he has faced legal backlash from the social media company for trying to stop the transaction.

Musk claimed that Twitter undercounted the number of fake accounts on its platform, and Twitter sued when Musk announced the deal had fallen through.

Neither Twitter nor Musk’s attorneys responded to messages seeking comment Tuesday.

The trial designed to force Musk to buy Twitter is scheduled to begin Oct. 17 in the Delaware Chancery Court.

Musk’s argument for walking away from the deal was largely based on claims that Twitter misrepresented how it measures the size of “spam bot” accounts, which are useless to advertisers. But most legal experts believed he faced an uphill battle to convince Chancellor Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick, the court’s chief justice, that something had changed since April’s merger agreement that warranted ending the deal.