Elon Musk agrees to go ahead with $44 billion Twitter deal

The Twitter profile page belonging to Elon Musk is seen on an Apple iPhone mobile phone. Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images/courtesy CNBC

Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk has agreed to move forward with his $44 billion deal to buy Twitter (TWTR), Bloomberg reported.

Musk made the proposal in a letter to Twitter, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified discussing confidential information.

Twitter shares surged 15% on Tuesday after Bloomberg first reported the Tesla CEO’s plans to go forth with his deal to acquire the company. The stock was halted after the report.

Musk initially agreed to buy Twitter in April for $54.20 per share, which works out to $44 billion. He then said he was pulling out of the deal, claiming that Twitter wasn't providing enough information about the number of bots it had on the platform. Twitter struck back against Musk in July, filing a lawsuit in Delaware Chancery with the hopes that Musk would be forced to buy the company.

In its lawsuit, Twitter said that Musk's purported concern about bots was just a pretext for backing out of the deal as the stock market started to turn sour. The two sides were scheduled to go to court on Oct. 17.