That's a strange way of saying he was right.

There is zero evidence that he is right.

All we know are the facts, he agreed to buy twitter and now he is trying to walk away from the deal.

There could be multiple reasons for that, including what he is saying on face value or a dozen other scenarios.

He could still be wanting to buy twitter and use this as a bargaining tool to lower the price.

You can say he was right, once we know the full facts which will be once this plays out and since it doesn't really affect any of us, speculating right now is simply taking part in silly gossip.

It's incredibly implausible that it's what he's saying on face value because a million other people seem to understand what Twitter was referring to around monetized monthly users or whatnot, and the idea that he didn't at first and then realized this other number was actually make-or-break is ludicrous.

Like, you can sign up for free. What's gonna prevent fake accounts in that case?

Yeah and everyone knew for months this day would come. After the stocks started falling in the spring there was no way he would not try to weasel out.

In my mind this is an insane conspiracy theory that fails occam razor, he was high and said we wanted to buy Twitter. People made fun of him so he dug in to prove all those stupid people. There is no complex deal needed here.

Occam razor is Musk made an offer at the height of the market, now he doesn't want to honor the legally binding contract he entered into because he'd lose 20b right away.

Not that complicated really.

I have no clue if he is right or not

But is it true?

I would imagine there are cheaper ways to accomplish the same goal

That still does not answer the question.

How would you find a definitive answer?

That is a very good question, monitor the SEC for clues, if they bring some kind of action (which should either happen soon now that he has made it official he wants to back out or not at all).

given the SEC's regular lack of enforcement, their inaction would not be evidence of lack of wrongdoing

With counterparties like Musk it doesn't pay to try to go for some minor infraction, they will just lawyer their way out of it or stretch it forever, but if it is solid enough (and $44B might just do it) then it may well wake up the dragon. To be fair, someone would likely have to ask them nicely to do so because they feel that they have lost a lot of money due to Musk's actions.

Which ones? Basically any way of him dumping billions of Tesla stock would've immediately popped the price. With this action, not only did he get plausible deniability, he also got a massive distraction on top.

Create Mars Foundation or do any other shenanigans rich people normally do.