In an apparent jibe at Twitter, Musk says investors are 'overpaying' for the deal

Tesla CEO Elon Musk says that he is excited about buying Twitter despite "overpaying" for the social media company. Musk was speaking during a call about the electric vehicle maker's quarterly report. He had earlier tried to back out of the $44 billion deal.

"Myself and the other investors are obviously overpaying for Twitter right now. The long term potential for Twitter in my view is an order of magnitude greater than its current value," he said.

He also said that Twitter is an asset that has languished.

"I'm excited about the Twitter situation obviously because I know.. incredibly well. And I think it's an asset that has been sort of languished for a long time, but has incredible potential," he said.

During the same call, Musk also talked about how hopeful he was about Tesla's Q4 reports, even though the company would probably miss its vehicle delivery targets this year.

"We are extremely confident of a great Q4 and we anticipate continuing to grow our vehicle production, sales and deliveries by, on average by 50 per cent a year as far into the future as we can see," said Musk.

"We have excellent demand for Q4 and we expect to sell every car that we make," he added.

Musk has been trying to raise cash to fund the Twitter purchase, and some experts say he may need to sell about $3 billion more in stock after the Tesla quarterly report to do so.

Earlier, a Delaware judge had ordered a pause to Twitter's lawsuit against Musk, giving the billionaire until October 28 to close the deal.

He also informed that Tesla Inc's advanced driver assistant software won't gain regulatory approval in 2022, indicatingthe company is not yet able to satisfy authorities that its cars can be driven without someone behind the wheel.

Musk, CEO of SpaceX, and Neuralink and Boring Company, said on Wednesday that he does not have a current plan to combine them with Twitter under one umbrella.

(With inputs from agencies)