Twitter shares will be suspended from trading on Friday as billionaire Elon Musk faces a court-ordered 28 October deadline to close his US$44-billion deal to buy the social media company.

Musk, the world’s richest person, visited Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco on Wednesday and hinted he was the company’s top boss after updating his profile bio to “Chief Twit”.

Equity investors, including Sequoia Capital, Binance, Qatar Investment Authority and others, have received the requisite paperwork for the financing commitment from Musk’s lawyers.

The deal’s completion will mark an end to a lawsuit by Twitter, which, along with investors, now expects the deal to be completed on its original terms of $54.20/share.

Read: Twitter is losing its most active users, documents show

Twitter’s shares were up about 1% at $53.92 in premarket trading, compared with Musk’s offer price of $54.20/share. The stock has surged nearly 65% from a four-month low hit in July. — Mrinmay Dey, with Medha Singh, (c) 2022 Reuters