Twitter says waiting period for Elon Musk's deal is over

The waiting period under the HSR Act for Elon Musk's $44-billion acquisition of the social media firm has expired, Twitter Inc announced on Friday.

The expiration of the HSR waiting period occurred at 11:59 p.m. EDT on June 2, 2022, which was a condition to the closing of the pending transaction, it said.

With the expiration, completion of the deal is now subject to remaining customary closing conditions, including approval by Twitter stockholders and any other regulatory approvals, Twitter said.

The HSR Act, or the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, requires parties to report large transactions to both the Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division for review.

If either agency had filed a "second request" for documents, the deal would have faced an investigation that could have lasted months.

The development comes as Musk said last month that the Twitter deal was "temporarily on hold", while he sought more information about the proportion of fake accounts on the platform.

"Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users," Musk said in a tweet.

Musk has secured funding for the deal, which includes $33.5 billion through equity financing and $13 billion through loans against Twitter.

Twitter's shares rose about 2% to $40.62 in premarket trading.