Dan Scott said:
If True Elon let his ego get the best of him. Wasn't the breakup fee for the transaction $1-2B? He could have walked away and come back at a later time. He could have made money because the initial shares of TSLA he sold were near the highs. He could have paid the breakup fee, and bought back the stock he sold in May.You must like pain a lot. One catch: you have to invest your life savings in Twitter and it has been in the fast lane to bankruptcy since May. Still want the job?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 18, 2022
He wasn't going to be able to walk away and just pay the $1B. He was badly losing the case in the Chancery Court in Delaware and was going to be forced to buy Twitter whether he liked it or not. If he could have just walked away and paid $1B, he would have done so.