Twitter has accepted an offer from Ilon Musk. Twitter’s board of directors announced that it had accepted an offer from Ilon Musk to acquire the company. The stock then rose 5.9 percent to $51.79.

Earlier this month, Musk had offered to buy Twitter for $54.20 a share. The board agreed to the deal, valuing the company at about $44 billion.

The social network was expected to back out of the deal. It took what it called a “poison pill” to fend off a potential hostile takeover. However, Twitter became more receptive to the bid after Musk said it received $46.5 billion in funding.

Elon Musk announced his intention to buy back Twitter stock on April 14. The billionaire explained that he wants to take the company off the stock exchange, because “in its current state, it cannot serve free speech.”

It should also be noted that Elon Musk sold about $4 billion of his Tesla shares in the first days after he offered to buy Twitter, follows from the SEC documents