I have a hard time seeing this as being anything other than a fun how-can-I-fuck-with-people-today kind of game for him.

I mean, yeah, sure on the surface it's economically rational and all, but really--you're already nominally in charge of at least 3 different large companies, yet this is how you choose to spend your time and energy? Nickel-and-diming Twitter for lulz?

edit: and before someone points out what a big difference a few dollars in the share price would make towards the acquisition price: if he really believes that Twitter has so much untapped potential (economic or otherwise), then a few dollars either way shouldn't matter much. But by going to such lengths to slightly reduce the cost and jeopardize the deal, he shows that he doesn't think it has much potential and/or he's just screwing around.

Twitter is incredibly important to him, without it he’d never have been able to craft his Tesla or SpaceX narratives and garner so much retail support. Buying Twitter guarantees him a (bully) pulpit and raises his profile ever higher. His antics could easily get him banned in the future, with devastating results.

I've heard this said many times but it doesn't align with my own observations of Tesla and SpaceX's success. Is there any evidence that Tesla vehicle sales and SpaceX launch services are driven by Musk's personality?

SpaceX's success is easy to explain: they could do the same task as competitors for a substantially lower price.

As for Tesla's market success, I think that's predominantly driven by the product itself. They won countless car of the year awards. Customer satisfaction levels at near-unprecedented levels. Record-breaking 0-60 times provide an angle for gushing media coverage. And a decade of having no competitors in the market subset of desirable EVs. I've personally never heard anyone mention Elon when describing why they're interested in—or purchased—a Tesla vehcile.

Tesla's success in the market for cars is not driven by buyers' love for Elon (much), but I'm not sure that's the case for Tesla's vastly disproportionate success in the stock market.

IMO, a significant contributor to Tesla’s market success was that they were willing to sell cars at low margins. That’s what got them a decade of having no competitors in the market subset of desirable EVs.

They also intuited/gambled/stumbled upon (pick your verb depending on what you think of it) that “electric and fast” was enough to compete against non-EV cars with much better finish.

They're talking about retail support for the stock price, not Tesla's operational performance in the real world. People aren't buying Tesla cars because of Musks antics but they are (or were) buying Tesla shares on that basis.

Using Twitter may be important to him, but buying it? Looks to me like the jury is still very much out on that.

This whole dog and pony show is showing us what we knew all along - these tech valuations were batshit insane and now we can finally see that these money losing companies are not worth the stock certificates they're printed on

> these money losing companies Which companies would that be ? Neither Tesla nor Twitter are losing money.

If he really had an ego he would think “I am so good I can pay 54.20 for this company worth 30.00 and still spin it back into a public company worth $100. I am unstoppable. This is how I think about his ego. It is also why I think he just pays the $54.20 and doesn’t bat an eye. He is just haggling right now if he can. Nothing serious.

Turning twitter into a public company worth $100/share would be below par for Elon's performance with all his previous companies so far. He'll probably turn it into a company worth much more if he actually acquires it. Even just unbanning Trump from the platform would drastically shoot up the share price. Twitter leadership has been screwing itself as a company for some time.

It's the $44B he's worried about. That's how much he owes Twitter's shareholders unless he can find some way of either declaring the contract entirely void, or at least triggering one of the clauses that would allow him to get away only paying the $1B.

Both options are very unlikely, but this will drag on.

I call him a fool all the time