As I recall, he was taken to court and was on the path to being forced to adhere to his word in the form of a signed contract. I wouldn't call that being suckered.

If he was suckered, he was suckered by his own pride.

We don’t know every detail, and probably never will. If you look at the list of events that happened before he first announced his intentions to buy the company outright, you could intuit that he did not intend to buy the company, and that external elements sweet talked him into it.