Facing A Trial With Twitter, Elon Musk Offers Original $54.20/Share Buyout Price: Report

Elon Musk has reportedly proposed a buyout of Twitter Inc TWTR at his original offer price of $54.20 per share Tuesday.

The news comes as the two parties prepare to square off in court Oct. 17 after Twitter sued Musk with the aim of forcing him to follow through on the acquisition of the social media platform.
Musk's lawyers sent the proposal to Twitter's litigation staff overnight Monday and filed a letter with the Delaware Chancery Court ahead of an emergency meeting set for Tuesday, according to The Wall Street Journal. 
The judge presiding over the case asked the two parties to get back to her by the end of the day with a potential proposal that would allow the litigation to be withdrawn.

What Happened: Twitter shares were halted Tuesday afternoon following the report from Bloomberg, which cited sources familiar with the situation when reporting that Musk made the proposal in a letter to Twitter. 

Shares of Twitter surged by 12.67% to $47.93 before the 12:13 p.m. trading halt. 

Conversely, shares of Tesla Inc TSLA fell as much as 4.2% before the stock began to rebound.

The Legal Backdrop: Pretrial interrogation in the case that was slated for last week was postponed by Musk and Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal.

Musk’s reported offer comes after a prolonged dispute with the microblogging service over claims that it misled the billionaire about the size of its user base and the presence of bots.

Text messages from Musk to and from multiple people involved in the Twitter stake and acquisition were released last week.

The texts were to be used in the lawsuit filed by Twitter to push the acquisition to go through after Musk announced he was walking away from the deal.

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