about a dozen answers have been posted here, each one missing the point

people are conflating Musk's personal balance sheet with Twitter's. it's not clear to me whether any debt would be recourse to Musk—but in all likelihood, it wouldn't be. "recourse" is a term used to describe what collateralizes the loan. if the loan is recourse to Musk, he'll have to cover the cost if Twitter isn't spitting off enough cash flow to service the debt. if it's non-recourse, then the only collateral available to the creditors is Twitter and its assets (potentially subject to certain carve-outs). most rich people don't do recourse transactions as a risk mitigation measure. however, non-recourse debt is costlier because the universe of collateral available to the lender is slimmer

why can't anyone do this? because Musk has been deemed a better sponsor / steward of capital than your average joe