Elon Musk continues to try to take over Twitter

However, Elon Musk is continuing the Twitter takeover offer, which he signed in April, while maintaining the original bid price of $54.20 per share. The tech billionaire and Tesla CEO wrote this in a message to Twitter, reports Bloomberg. The social media company has since confirmed the news.

The development is surprising, as Musk has sought to withdraw his bid for a total of $44 billion in recent months. He accused Twitter of giving him insufficient information about the number of fake and spam accounts (bots), which, unlike real users, are of no interest to advertisers. But according to many observers, his enthusiasm has mainly subsided, because the price of technology shares has fallen sharply due to high interest rates, which suddenly made the value of the company much lower.

• Whistleblowers are suing Twitter security

whistleblower

The news that Musk wanted to cancel the deal also caused Twitter’s shares to drop further, and thus Twitter sued Musk. It demanded that the company abide by the agreements already entered into and proceed with the acquisition at the original price. The world’s richest man responded by suing Twitter and its former CEO, Jack Dorsey, for allegedly lying about the deal. Musk cited, among other things, the revelations of Twitter’s former chief of security, Peter Zatko, who painted a hateful picture in the Washington Post about poor security against hackers at the social media company.

The legal battle between Twitter and Musk will take place in Delaware court starting October 17. It is unclear whether the process will continue if Musk continues his takeover bid. Reply to news BloombergTwitter shares jumped more than 12 percent right before trading halted. Meanwhile, trading has resumed and shares are already up 22 percent, to $52 — just below Musk’s bid price.