Representatives of
Twitter Inc.
and
continued Thursday to work to hammer out an agreement that would allow the billionaire’s purchase of the social-media company to proceed, with the parties racing to seal a pact by Monday, a person familiar with the matter said.
Mr. Musk effectively kicked off the negotiations earlier this week with his surprise proposal to close the deal at its original price after seeking for months to get out of it.
The negotiations, which follow an earlier effort to negotiate a lower price, are focused on ensuring that Mr. Musk’s debt financing will remain in place and on conditions to stay litigation over the deal until it closes, as The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. Mr. Musk is now requesting that the deal be contingent on his receipt of the necessary debt financing.
The lawyers are trying to reach an agreement that would pause a trial planned for Oct. 17 in the next few days, the person said. That would avert a deposition from Mr. Musk, which after being postponed is now scheduled for Monday.
The idea is to put the litigation on hold until the deal closes, at which point it would be dropped. That could take days or a few weeks.
Meanwhile, Mr. Musk’s team in a Thursday filing asked the court to stay the lawsuit. It said in the filing that the financing banks are working to fund the deal so it can close, which it expects to happen on or around Oct. 28. His team argues that proceeding with the litigation, as it says Twitter prefers, could keep the deal in limbo longer.
The two sides remain in active dialogue and things could change quickly, the person cautioned.
Mr. Musk agreed to buy Twitter in April for $54.20 a share, or $44 billion. He later moved to get out of the deal, claiming among other things that Twitter had misrepresented the number of bots on its platform. Twitter sued him over the summer and he countersued.
Renewed uncertainty about the deal has weighed on Twitter shares, which closed down 3.7% at $49.39 Thursday. They had shot up above $52 earlier in the week after Mr. Musk signaled a willingness to close the deal after all.
—Alexa Corse contributed to this article.
Write to Cara Lombardo at cara.lombardo@wsj.com
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