Elon Musk has offered to close his acquisition of Twitter on the terms he originally agreed to, a sudden and unexpected comedown for the billionaire entrepreneur that could end a months-long battle he waged to get out of the $44bn deal.

A lawyer for Musk communicated the proposal to Twitter’s lawyers on 3 October, according to a copy of a two-sentence letter that was filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on the afternoon of 4 October.