Musk offered to buy the San Francisco company at $54.20. Shares rose nearly 13% to $47.95 before trading was halted.
Bloomberg News reported Tuesday that Musk made the proposal in a letter on Twitter, according to people familiar with the matter who were not identified.
Musk has been trying to back out of the deal for several months after signing on to buy the social media platform in April. Shareholders have already approved the sale. Musk claimed Twitter was undercounting the number of fake accounts on its platform, and Twitter sued when Musk announced the deal was off.
Neither Twitter nor Musk’s lawyers responded to messages seeking comment on Tuesday.
The trial to force Musk to buy Twitter will begin in Delaware Court of Chancery on October 17.
Musk’s argument for walking away from the deal has largely been based on the allegation that Twitter misrepresented how it measures the magnitude of “spambot” accounts that are useless to advertisers. But most legal experts believed he faced an uphill battle to convince Chancellor Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick, the court’s chief judge, that something changed since the April merger agreement that warrants terminating the agreement.
