They were nearing Elon Musk’s $54.20-per-share buyout offer for the microblogging site on Wednesday, in a sign that investors are finally hoping the deal will go through before the court deadline later this week.
Shares of the social media company were up 0.5% at the time of writing, hitting a near seven-month high of $53.05 before the market opens, the closest they’ve been to Musk’s offering since it was announced in mid-April.
In the six months of dramatic back and forth since Musk announced his offer, Twitter initially resisted the deal by adopting the so-called “poison pill” strategy (a limited shareholder rights plan), only to later sue the world’s richest man after he announced plans to abandon his bid over concerns about spam accounts on the platform.
Twitter shares fell as low as $32.50 in July.
Earlier this month, Musk proposed going ahead with his original $44 billion offer, calling for an end to a lawsuit from the social media company that could have forced him to pay, sending Twitter’s stock up 24%.
Musk, CEO of Tesla, has notified co-investors who have pledged to help fund its $44 billion acquisition of Twitter that it plans to close its purchase of the social media company by Friday, a person with knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Tuesday.
Banks that provided $13 billion in financing for the deal have abandoned plans to sell the debt to investors due to uncertainty surrounding Twitter’s future and losses, Reuters reported last week.
