According to Bloomberg News on Tuesday, billionaire Elon Musk is pushing to go with his initial bid of $54.20 to take Twitter private. This news caused the shares of the social media company to soar. Shares of Twitter increased 12.7% to $47.93 before trading was suspended for a second time.
The announcement comes only days before a much anticipated legal battle between Musk and Twitter before Delaware’s Court of Chancery on October 17. The social media giant was expected to ask a judge to require Musk to consummate the transaction at the agreed-upon price per share. For context, Musk was set to purchase Twitter for $44 billion in April, but shortly after had claimed there were far more bot accounts than Twitter had estimated, which was stated to be around 5% of all users.
It’s unclear how the court case will play out, but taking this action could display a willingness by Elon to buy the company while also taking any legal pursuit necessary to sniff out fraud.