so even if he personally spent $1million on getting lobbyists to convince gov't to say no, that would still only have been $1.1b vs the ~$44 or whatever the price in the window was.

Why do you think he was getting involved in Ukraine, Taiwan, and apparently influencing ‘whistleblowers’?

He was hoping he’d look like such a mess they’d step in and shitcan it.

But no one took the bait.

Didn't he talk to Putin too? It's all making sense now.

Yup

It looks more like he wanted exclusive Tesla and/or SpaceX deals there. Russia has no proper cars, but China has. The Russian rocket industry might also look attractive, he won't get any Chinese contracts for sure.

The heavily embargoed, historic-enemy of the US Russia?

The one who is actively threatening to nuke us because we’re sending millions of tons of weapons and ammunition to someone they’re invading while we sanction them to the gills?

What are you smoking? There is no way they’d let him export Rocket engines to them, or cars. Likely for decades.

I suspect the FBI visited him after his Putin talk and reminded him that they could make him register as a foreign agent, or go to jail for that. Not that anyone would say anything.

You give him far too much credit. Musk has fundamental edgelord qualities and his support of powerful dictatorships is of a piece with that.

These are not incompatible ideas, by the way.

Of course he’s going to do what he defaults to and knows best to try to get out of a bad deal?

Can you really say edgelording so hard you appear to be a legitimate national security threat to get out of a $44bln deal you don’t want is something that doesn’t sound typically Elon Musk?

1 million isn't 0.1 billion. It's 0.001 billion.

it's all just rounding errors at that point though, but yes, you're correct. congratulations.