Musk renews effort to buy Twitter

Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk has revived his $44 billion dollar offer to buy Twitter, months after previous negotiations soured and prompted the social media giant to sue in an effort to force the massive purchase. 

Musk reiterated his proposal in a letter to Twitter on Tuesday – also filing a document with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) declaring his intent to buy the company – suggesting they stick with an initial deal struck in April for $54.20 per share. 

While Twitter later responded that it still hoped to finish the transaction on its original terms, it did not say whether it would drop its lawsuit against Musk, which was launched in July after the billionaire said he was abandoning plans to buy the company amid a dispute over how many bot and spam accounts are active on the site. The legal action seeks to compel Musk to go through with the deal, accusing him of acting in “bad faith” during negotiations and making a “public spectacle” out of the sale.

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According to an internal message obtained by CNN, Twitter General Counsel Sean Edgett told employees that the company would go through with the agreement at $54.20 per share.

“I will continue to keep you posted on significant updates, but in the meantime, thank you for your patience as we work through this on the legal side,” he told staffers.

News of the planned purchase quickly sent Twitter’s share price soaring, giving it a 20% jump by the time markets closed on Tuesday.

Musk made waves after announcing that he had become Twitter’s largest shareholder in April, but his efforts to buy the platform have remained uncertain in the months since, with the entrepreneur accepting, and then turning down, an offer to sit on the company’s board ahead of the bot controversy. 

In a tweet after his renewed plans went public, Musk said buying Twitter would merely be “an accelerant to creating X,” which he described as the future’s “everything app.” Keeping with his typical trollish and at times mysterious posting style, however, the tech CEO offered no details about the concept, leaving observers to speculate about what he might have in mind.