Musk says he is ready to buy Twitter - again
Musk appears to have renewed his offer because he had little hope of winning in court.
Billionaire Elon Musk seems to have changed his mind about purchasing Twitter again, just weeks before the scheduled start of a court battle over his previous attempts to back out of the deal.
In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the world's wealthiest man and Tesla CEO said he had sent Twitter a letter promising to honour the agreement.
Attorneys for Mr Musk said in the letter that Musk now wants to proceed with the deal, on the condition that the Delaware Chancery Court issue an "immediate stay" of Twitter's lawsuit against him and adjourn the trial scheduled to start on the 17th October.
Twitter confirmed receiving the letter and said it intended to complete the acquisition at the previously agreed-upon share price of $54.20. The company did not, however, say it was withdrawing its lawsuit.
Given the tense relationship and lack of trust between the two sides, experts said Twitter's cautious approach makes sense.
Musk later on Tuesday tweeted: "Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app".
After agreeing to pay $44 billion for Twitter in April, Musk has been attempting to back out of the agreement.
Twitter shareholders approved the acquisition deal, but within weeks Musk warned that he could cancel the offer - justifying his statement by saying Twitter underestimated the amount of bot accounts on its platform. He said Twitter's estimate that the platform has fewer than 5% of bot accounts was far too low - albeit with no evidence for his claims.
Twitter sued Musk in July after he declared the transaction was off, with a trial in Delaware Chancery Court due to start this month.
The majority of legal experts believe Musk would have a difficult time convincing the court's chief judge, Chancellor Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick, that the merger agreement should be terminated because something had changed since April.
On 27th September, Twitter's legal team said the researchers employed by Musk estimated the amount of spam accounts on the platform between 5.3% and 11%.
"None of these analyses so far as we can tell remotely supported what Mr. Musk told Twitter and told the world," Twitter lawyer Bradley Wilson told the court.
University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias said he believed "Musk realised he was not going to win that trial."
"Ever since he had buyer's remorse, the problem has been why, and why had he not done due diligence up front."
Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives said the likelihood of Musk succeeding in the court case was remote.
"Being forced to do the deal after a long and ugly court battle in Delaware was not an ideal scenario and instead accepting this path and moving forward with the deal will save a massive legal headache."
Ives added that the acquisition would still probably spark a "firestorm of worries and questions" in Washington and beyond.
Musk has often sparked controversies on Twitter.
On Monday, he was involved in a Twitter argument with the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, over his thoughts on how to stop Russia's invasion of Ukraine - seeming to support Russia's narrative and the idea of annexation.