Elon Musk is going forward with the deal to purchase Twitter. According to Bloomberg, he sent a letter to Twitter saying that he wanted to proceed with the deal at the original share price of $54.20.
Musk and Twitter were scheduled to take their beef to the Delaware Chancery Court, and he was to be deposed, later this week. His letter would likely mean the legal proceedings would be halted.
Twitter issued this statement about today's news: We received the letter from the Musk parties which they have filed with the SEC. The intention of the Company is to close the transaction at $54.20 per share.
This move will likely conclude the monthslong drama of the Tesla and Space X CEO's plans to buy Twitter. This spring, Musk bought a 9% stake of shares in the company and was offered a board seat (which he later rejected). Twitter cofounder and former CEO Jack Dorsey publicly supported him. Musk teased some of his ambitions for Twitter, running a poll about whether people supported "free speech" and ideas about an edit button.
Last week, documents for the legal proceedings were released that included a series of text messages from Musk’s phone, which revealed how quickly after the deal was set up that he started clashing with Parag Agrawal, the current Twitter chief.
Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users https://t.co/Y2t0QMuuyn
Not long after the deal was made, Musk started expressing concern that Twitter had a bigger problem with bots and fake accounts than it had initially let on, which would mean the real number of users (and therefore the value of the company) was lower than the $54.20 per share price he had offered. The deal was set up so that if Musk pulled out due to buyer's remorse, he would have to pay a $1 billion penalty fee.
The bot issue dragged on, with Musk unhappy with the way that Twitter claimed to measure real users, and Twitter standing by its numbers. The social network's former security chief came forward alleging that the bot numbers were indeed inaccurate, which Twitter disputed. By early August, Twitter filed a lawsuit in the Delaware Chancery Court to hold Musk to the original deal terms. That suit was supposed to move forward next week in court.
The day before the letter to Twitter announcing his plans to move forward with original deal, Musk seemed occupied with other interests, such as the war in Ukraine.
Let’s try this then: the will of the people who live in the Donbas & Crimea should decide whether they’re part of Russia or Ukraine
UPDATE
This post has been updated with additional context about the history of Elon Musk's plans to buy Twitter were added.
UPDATE
This post has been updated with the statement from Twitter's PR.