No, that's not legal. Trying to back out of this deal because market fluctuations caused the company to be worth less than he wanted would be very, very much against his contract.

He can only back out is Twitter's securities filings are so wrong that profit projections are more than 40% off (MAE standard) or he was unable to secure financing. Spambots being a bit higher than projected is not enough to break the contract, especially given that Musk waived due diligence and that the Twitter filings have always said that the bot number is an estimate. Elon Musk's lawyers are probably more than a bit panicked right now.

Sounds like it. There seems to be two paths due to the due diligence not being done by Musk.

1. Accept the 1bn backout and accept that Musk will look like a fool.

2. Sell enough Tesla stock to finance the deal, while risking a total meltdown of the Tesla stock price.

The lawyers are most likely trying to devise a third option, but it's very hard to see how that can play out.

Being one of Musk's lawyers sounds like possibly one of the most stressful jobs in the world!

Doubt it. They have a client who makes things difficult, but that's nothing compared to the stress of being in a job where a wrong decision costs lives.

I think you underestimate the human ability to feel stress. I recently heard about a video game developer/director having a stroke due to stress from extended crunch. A video game! No lives at stake there. Heck, you should have seen how stressed I was in grad school ... I was nearly suicidal on occasion. But absolutely nothing substantial hinged on the work I was doing.

So Tesla's lawyers probably aren't doing great either.

Man it sounds like guaranteed lifetime employment.

If everything is on fire, all day, every day, then nothing is on fire.

Coupled with decreased life expectancy due to hypertension, risk of stroke/aneurysm.