BREAKING: Twitter accepts Elon Musk’s proposal to buy company at $44bn

Twitter has accepted Elon Musk’s proposal to buy the company for $44billion, with a deal expected to close within weeks.

A spokesman for the company told DailyMail.com on Tuesday afternoon: ‘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.’

Musk changed course because he and his legal team thought they would lose at trial anyway, according to sources cited by Bloomberg on Tuesday.

Had he lost, he would have been ordered by a Delaware court to go ahead with the sale after a costly and embarrassing battle.

The judge presiding over the dispute is Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick, who recently rejected his request to delay the trial and who he feared might not rule in his favour, according to Bloomberg’s sources.

If the deal goes through, Musk would own the company within a matter of weeks. He has not commented publicly about the new offer.

Instead, he tweeted about his internet satellites not making money on Tuesday and asked his followers for ‘support’.

Trading of shares was halted on Tuesday as news of his offer emerged and drove the company’s share price up by 13 percent.

Musk’s original offer in April was to buy the company for $44billion – 38 percent more than what the market said it was worth at the time.

But after months of back and forth, he tried to back out of the deal in July, citing Twitter’s apparent refusal to hand over enough information about how many spam and bot accounts were active on the site.

Twitter sued him for attempting to back out and the two sides were due to fight it out at a civil trial in just a few weeks.

Tuesday’s new proposal signals an end to that dispute, though it’s unclear what prompted Musk to change his mind.

He now is likely to own the company within days, sources cited by CNBC said.

It comes within days of super-agent Ari Emanuel, one of Musk’s friends, urging Twitter to come to a settlement with him ahead of the court date.

Hollywood titan Emanuel recently contacted Egon Durban, a member of Twitter’s board, urging him to end the dispute.

Emanuel is friends with both Musk and Durban, who sits on the board of his company, Endeavor.

Musk’s retreat from the court battle signals a surprising end to the months-long saga.

In April, Musk announced that he was Twitter’s largest shareholder, owning 9.2 percent of the company.

He then proposed buying the company, speaking publicly about how tired he’d become of its bias and its squashing of free speech.

Months of toeing and froing ensued and Twitter employees were driven into a meltdown at the thought of unpredictable Musk becoming their new boss.