Trading in shares of Twitter were halted after the stock spiked on reports that Elon Musk would proceed with his 44 billion US dollar (£38 billion) deal to buy the company after months of legal battles.

Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday that Mr Musk made the proposal in a letter to Twitter, according to people familiar with the case who were not identified.

Mr 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.

Mr Musk claimed that Twitter under-counted the number of fake accounts on its platform, and Twitter sued when Mr Musk announced the deal was off.

Neither Twitter nor lawyers for Mr Musk responded to messages seeking comment on Tuesday.

The trial seeking to compel Mr Musk to buy Twitter is set to start in Delaware Chancery Court on October 17.

Mr Musk’s argument for walking away from the deal — has largely rested on the allegation that Twitter misrepresented how it measures the magnitude of “spam bot” accounts that are useless to advertisers.

But most legal experts believed he faced an uphill battle in convincing Chancellor Kathaleen St Jude McCormick, the court’s head judge, that something changed since the April merger agreement that justifies terminating the deal.